Las Cazadoras de la Bruja
by DocFry
Summary: Following the continuation of their journey with no destination, Nadie and Ellis must now endure the sinister (if not quite competent) conspiracy of three witches, led by the equally sinister (if not so in competence) Sister Dido. A story of evil plots, the growing relationship between Nadie and Ellis, and surprisingly sympathetic genre-saavy demonic minions.
1. The Beginning at the end of the Story

Las Cazadoras de la Bruja

_Disclaimer: I do not own El Cazador de la Bruja. It is the respectful property of Bee-Train and any licensing companies thereof. I am making no money off of this, nor do I plan to._

Episode 1: The Beginning at the end of the Story

Dido was not a happy woman. She had been one of the witches on the council who was in favor of killing Ellis. The news that she would be allowed to live came as a pretty nasty shock to her. What made it even worse was the fact that not only would Ellis be allowed to live, she was to be recognized as an actual witch, and not as an abomination created by man.

She was leaning against the wall of one of the hallways located within the council's main building, located in a [CLASSIFIED] location somewhere in [CLASSIFIED]. The fact that she was angry was made plainly clear by her action of thumping the back of her head against the wall.

_It just didn't make sense, _she thought to herself. _After all the fuss, all the trouble, all the worrying that the council made over the girl, and they were just going to _LET HER GO_?_

She gave out a disgruntled moan as another witch approached her.

"Dido, if you insist on being angry, I would prefer that you don't unnecessarily kill any brain cells while doing so. That's what drinking is for."

After giving out more angry noises, she stood, hunched over, and turned away. After taking a couple of steps, she spoke.

"Sister Kennedy, you know how angry the general opinion of the council has made me. I mean, what was it all for, all the chasing, all the observing? We should have at least _captured _the girl at some point!" she said, punctuating the last point with a fist to the wall.

"Sister Dido is right." Spoke another witch, much older than either Kennedy or Dido, who had observed Dido's moping and decided to join in (after all, moping is a far more pleasurable experience when you have others to mope with you).

"Sister Maria, I assume you understand what Dido is saying?" asked Kennedy.

"Of course I do! After all, she and I were among the faction that wanted to kill the girl. I have as much reason to be angry as she is!"

"Well, may I ask, what are you two going to do now? It is forbidden to go against the will of the council. To do so would only invite trouble into our own lives." Spoke Kennedy.

Dido growled, sighed, and proceeded to walk off down the hallway.

"I mean, what are you going to do, go off and start your own council with the primary goal of killing the girl?" continued Kennedy.

Dido stopped momentarily, turned around, and stared at Kennedy for a moment (or at least, as much as a hood would indicate that someone was staring in a particular direction). After that, she came up quickly in front of her and hugged her, laughing softly.

"Kennedy, there's a reason you're my friend." She said, and after that she went running off down the hall, alternating between giggling and flat-out laughter, leaving behind a very confused Kennedy in her wake.

"Poor thing," spoke Maria, "she's gone flat-out loca!"

* * *

_Several years later_

After not hearing much from her close friend Dido for several years (and only seeing her personally a couple of times), Kennedy had come to the conclusion that Maria was right and that her Dido had indeed gone insane. Thus, it came as a very great surprise to her that she got an invitation to come to some new "secret base" that Dido had constructed over the past several years.

Kennedy, after making preparations for a neighbor to watch after her dog and house, left for the place Dido had specified in the invitation, located in [CLASSIFIED] in the country of [CLASSIFIED].

She was, however, not at all prepared to witness just what her friend had been up to the past several years.

* * *

Kennedy reached the location via helicopter, landing at a location near to where the "secret base" was located. Dido was waiting for her in a large black SUV. They were both, as Dido requested in the letter, wearing their witch's robes, a little fact that failed to escape the mind of the helicopter pilot (just probably another weird, eccentric billionaire having guests for some wild party, thought the pilot).

"I'm glad to see you after so long, Dido," began Kennedy, "but I can't help but wonder what all of this is about."

"Oh, you'll see in due time, my sister." Said Dido.

After driving for about five minutes, they reached the location of the "secret base". From the outside, it looked like a fairly ordinary building, if just a bit tastefully done in a pseudo-Latin American style.

"So this is the 'secret base'? If you were just building a Summer-home, why didn't you just tell me?"

"You'll see, sister, just wait!" Dido said as she led the way inside. Upon entering, Kennedy noted how very empty the place seemed, sparsely decorated with furniture and decorations. Entering the kitchen, Kennedy was surprised to see another guest: none other than Sister Maria.

"Well, now I'm doubly surprised. What are you doing here, Sister Maria?"

"How could you tell with my hood on?" asked Maria.

"Well… really, that's a good question." Answered Kennedy, and after a brief exchange of (hooded) glances, the idea was exchanged between the two of them that it probably was better not to think too hard on the subject.

"Oh, I'm so excited, I feel like a schoolgirl on her first date!" spoke Dido as she went this way and that about the kitchen, picking up things only to seemingly forget why, in the fashion that people often do while excited or anxious about something.

Kennedy waited for about a minute, and then, starting to lose patience, asked "Well, are you going to tell me why you brought me here, and why Maria is here as well?"

Dido stopped, turned around with a smile on her face, and started to explain herself.

"Well, for starters, I figured it would be best if there were three people here on this joint venture of mine. Maria was here from the start, but I just couldn't envision myself doing any of this without you here!"

"Secondly, remember way back a few years ago, when the council decided to let that fake-witch live? Well, what you are about to see is the product of my search for vengeance! Maria, push the button!"

Maria got up, went over to an outlet with a black square button, a green triangular button, and a red round button, and pressed the red one. Just as she did that, Kennedy was shocked that the room seemed to begin to move, which in all actuality it was.

"Wh-what's going on here, Dido?!"

The kitchen was going under the ground, down a clearly man-made shaft. After about a minute, it arrived at its destination, a large, semi-circular metallic chamber that must have been hundreds of feet wide and tall. At the opposite end was a raised platform with a microphone, with several chairs behind it. In the middle of the room was a circular depression that appeared to be able to open up to something, but exactly what Kennedy was not sure.

Dido jumped off from the kitchen floor (which was raised a foot or so off the ground) and ran on over to the raised platform, beckoning Kennedy and Maria to follow after her.

"What, what… what in the world is this place?!" exclaimed Kennedy.

"I told her I thought it was a little big, but she insisted on a big meeting chamber. She's definitely loca, alright." Replied Maria.

"Wait, then you knew about all this?!"

Kennedy was disengaged from her surprise by a loud voice that seemed to fill the room. It was Dido speaking from the microphone.

"Now, my sister, all will be laid clear now! What you see before you is the work of several years! I have labored, through my connections and my own iron will, to have this place made in order to execute our plans thoroughly and without mistake!" exclaimed Dido.

"I'm sorry, Dido. This is very nice and all, but… what plans?" asked Kennedy.

"Why, it is surprising you ask that, my sister! For it you who gave me the very idea itself to build this place!"

"What in blue heavens do you mean?" after a moment of shocked silence.

"Remember, back to that faithful day, the day the council declared the hunt for the fake-witch to be over? You said it yourself: 'I mean, what are you going to do, go off and start your own council with the primary goal of killing the girl?' This is it! This is how we're going to do it! This is how we're going to KILL. THAT. GIRL!"

* * *

Ellis suddenly sneezed as she sat in the front seat of the jeep, on the road yet again with Nadie.

"Excuse me."

"No problem." Replied Nadie.

"I wonder if somebody is talking about me?"

"Hmm… well, if they are, they're probably saying stuff like 'Did you see that cute girl the other day with short blonde hair?' or 'Man, that blonde girl the other day sure was something!' or something along those lines."

Even as Ellis giggled at Nadie's guessing, Nadie still allowed a little worry to creep into the back of her mind. _At least, I hope that's what they're saying._

For you see, though Ellis has not been on the wanted list for quite some time now, she and Nadie have made their fair share of enemies over the years. Dealing with the occasional scumbag out for vengeance was usually no problem as Ellis had developed her skills to the point where she was able to defend herself in most circumstances. However, it was the ones that came after her with a purpose other than vengeance that had Nadie worried. She didn't understand American politics well, but she knew that Rosenberg had quite a number of people he stayed in contact with, and at least some of those people did not want the two primary witnesses to his actions to be allowed to relate them to anybody, in fear that the information might in some way tie what he did with themselves.

She had found this out soon after she and Ellis had hit the road again after having settled down for a while. When they went to meet with Ricardo and Lirio, Ricardo related that he had heard that there were several Americans in town that had been seeking out bounty hunters who knew something about the two of them. According to Ricardo, that's probably how the two transvestite bounty hunters found them again: because somebody had told them.

And this fact worried Nadie to no end.

There was another, more personal thing that worried her regarding Ellis, but every time her subconscious wanted to elaborate on it, another part of her mind viciously beat it down, kicked it aside, and for good measure, spat on it, and Nadie for the life of her couldn't figure out why. It was such a simple thing, but part of her mind didn't want to think about it, and at that she allowed it to remain.

"Nadie?"

"Yeah, Ellis?"

"You keep looking me. Is something the matter?"

"Uh, no, not really, it's just beca-"

"Because you're on the wrong side of the road."

"…eh?!"

Nadie realized that she was, indeed, on the wrong side of the road. After correcting herself (and thanking whatever spirit looked after her that there wasn't a big rig coming at her this time), she went on to continue her sentence, only to be interrupted by Ellis.

"Because?"

"Umm… i-it's just that… well… it's getting pretty late out, and I was wondering if you wanted to stop now and camp it out for the night, or try to find someplace where we could get a bed?"

After a moment's consideration, Ellis responded.

"A bed would be nice."

"Alright, then a place to crash for the night it is! Hang on!"

"Yes, sir!"

Ellis knew, as she and Nadie sped on down the road, that Nadie wanted to say something more important than to ask what her preferences for tonight's lodging were. And she had a pretty good idea what it was. But for the moment, she was content to let the thought go, as watching Nadie speed down the road, with that sparkle in her eye that she loved more than almost anything else in the world, was much more worthy of thought at the moment.

* * *

Kennedy wanted to kick herself. She wanted to kick herself very, very badly. She often felt this way due to her own personal quirks, but this time she desired the ability to clone herself, or at least her leg, for the sole purpose of kicking herself with it.

"So, what do you think? Pretty impressive place I have built here, isn't it?"

"Yeah, but-"

"Come, my dear sister! Gather around me as we plot the demise of that girl, that mockery of true witch-hood!"

Kennedy was about to protest, wanting a more thorough explanation as to how this place got built (namely, by who), but was interrupted from doing so by Maria walking past her and nudging her.

"Just do what she says." She said with just a hint of resignation.

Kennedy was going to protest but, realizing that was going to get her nowhere, joined Maria by Dido's side. Dido was holding an ancient obsidian mirror, the kind that one would find here and there in the Americas from before the days of the Spaniards.

"Do you see this? It is a very special mirror. Crafted from the finest obsidian, said by ancient witches of the Mexica to have belonged to the god Tezcatlipoca himself, this mirror allows, when one recites the proper words, to gaze out to anywhere in the world, in order to observe the actions of those being watched and to plan accordingly!"

Kennedy was actually quite amazed at the site of it (it _was, _after all, very finely crafted). To be in the presence of a magical artifact said to have been used by the gods was a great honor; she just wished it was under saner circumstances.

"So, do you know the correct words to recite?" she asked.

"Of course! I have made sure to check with the greatest witches of the modern Mexica to make sure that I recite the words properly, in both syntax and pronunciation. Come! Let the ceremony begin!"

Dido drew from her robe several sheets of paper, which she passed around to Maria and Kennedy.

"Is this the spell?"

"Yes, yes! Now, let's say it, on the mark of three!"

_Just back out of it now, _thought Kennedy to herself, _just back out of it now. Come up with some excuse. Say that you just suddenly remembered something very important you had to do at the moment, or that you felt that your house-sitter was doing lewd and lascivious things to your dog, or something like that. Just as long as you weren't _here.

"One!"

_Come on, Kennedy, you can do this. Mess up a line! Say that you were recently diagnosed with a speech impediment! Anything!_

"Two!"

…_you know, just forget it. Welcome to the rest of your life, I guess._

At that thought, Kennedy suddenly realized that maybe, just maybe, her subconscious was aware of some future events that her conscious mind was not, and was desperately trying to warn her.

_So this is what Cassandra must have felt like…_

"Three!"

The three witches than began to sing out their spell in order to activate the mirror.

_Vee, vee, vesosochi testakli!_

_Aa, aa, aa testakli testaklibocaho!_

_Chi, chi, chiteklaklostiloni_

_Ii, ii, ii chimia da mogale!_

Suddenly, the mirror started to glow, and then it began showing a wild array of images and colors before finally settling on an overhead view of two girls driving down a road.

"Yes, YES, that's them!" cried Dido triumphantly.

"Well, that's impressive, but there's a slight problem." Said Kennedy.

"And that is?"

"It's too damn small!" exclaimed Maria. Indeed, the three of them were hunched around a mirror only about two four inches wide. While not much of a problem for one person looking at it, it was a pain to have to cluster around it to get a good look.

"Ah, I foresaw this problem, and thus took actions to curb it!" Dido went over with the mirror to what was evidently a control panel set into one of the walls which, for some reason, Kennedy had not noticed earlier. Dido placed the mirror in a circular recess on the control panel, and attached what were apparently several wires that ended in vaguely what looked like alligator clamps. After pressing some meaningful looking buttons on the control panel, the wall parted above the area where the podium was, revealing a large television screen. When it flickered to life, it showed the scene on the mirror, but much, much bigger.

Though very impressed by this certain moment of ingenuity (and also confused as to how she figured out how to do it in the first place), Kennedy still didn't get what all of this was leading to.

"Okay, so we're now essentially stalkers. What next?" she asked.

"What next, my dear sister," began Kennedy, "is that we attempt to kill them with a long-distance spell!"

Kennedy slightly winced at those words. _Long-distance spell? Is she out of her mind? One of those hasn't been attempted in ages! Furthermore, we would need far more witches for it to be effective!_

Before she could launch into actually saying her thoughts, Dido began to explain the plan in detail.

"You see, my sisters, what I plan to do is a very simple, almost like how satellites work. I have an agent in the field, waiting for me to give the signal to set the spell into motion!"

"You are being wonderfully vague, Dido. Just _what _are you planning to do, and how are you going to go about it from a distance? You're not making a lick of sense!" spoke a now thoroughly-exasperated Kennedy.

"What I am planning to do," began Dido, giving an unnecessarily dramatic pause, "is to suck them into a wormhole!"

* * *

Nadie and Ellis, after having spent about 45 minutes looking for a destination, finally found one in the form of a developing small town that conveniently had a small inn for travelers (ai is it well known, small towns always have a room available to travelling protagonists). After checking out a room, Nadie and Ellis went up to the second floor (in other words, the top floor, as there were not any other floors above it). After bringing in their several bags of belongings that they've accumulated over the time they've been on the road again (such as several pairs of pants, shirts, socks, etc.), they both laid down on the bed.

"Aaah~, it is so nice being able to stretch out on a bed!" exclaimed Nadie in her usual enthusiasm she had whenever they found a place to stay for the night.

Ellis stood at the foot of the bed, looking at Nadie, and then to the rest of the bed, and then back to Nadie.

"Nadie."

"Hm?"

"This is a single-person bed."

There was a silence for a moment. After a brief exchange of glances, Ellis shrugged her shoulders, and jumped onto the bed with Nadie.

"Hey, Ellis, what are you do-"

"I don't mind sharing a bed with Nadie."

"Well, uh, well…"

Nadie was quite aware now that she was blushing. She felt incredibly perplexed: she's slept next to Ellis in the past many times before. And even though many times she caved into the pressure to put her arm around her and pull her closer, this time, she was feeling a different type of temptation. Just exactly what it was, however, she couldn't quite put her finger on. She had that feeling again of her subconscious beating the crap out of a thought in the back of her mind, and she did not know how to explain it.

After a fairly awkward silence, Nadie was broken out of her reverie by Ellis speaking.

"Nadie, is something wrong? Your face feels warm." She said as she put a hand on Nadie's cheek.

"Uh, well, eh-heh…"

Nadie felt the need to put an end to the awkwardness.

"I'm fine, Ellis. Hey, why don't we change into something and go looking around? I'm sure there's at least one shop in this town that sells knick-knacks of some sort."

"Yes, sir!"

Thus they both got off the bed and began getting ready to go look around the town. Ellis was facing the mirror on top of the dresser in the room, and caught site of Nadie taking her cloak off in the reflection. Ellis suddenly reflected back on what happened in the car, and remembered what she thought Nadie had wanted to say. She then thought of what she herself wanted to say to Nadie in the room, what prompted her to jump onto the bed. She knew the real reason why Nadie blushed; what made her sad, though, was that Nadie did not know her own reason for blushing, and at that, Ellis was not entirely sure what made her feel the same.

* * *

Kennedy stood dumbstruck as she was listening to Dido. _Did she just say "wormhole?" Wormhole? What is this, some kind of b-movie? What the hell is she thinking?_

But before Kennedy could motion for an objection, Dido brought her attention to the screen.

"Now, witness, my sisters, as my plan comes to fruition! Tonight, we shall ensure the doom of that fake witch and her companion!"

"Wait, why exactly do we have to kill the companion?" asked Kennedy.

"Well, duh! Revenge! Revenge for making a mockery of us! Revenge for causing Sister Hayward to turn against us and ensure their passage to The Place of Eternity!"

"_Ex-_Sister Hayward!" proclaimed Maria.

"Well, to be fair, that's more Sister Hay-" began Kennedy.

"_Ex-_Sister Hayward!" butted in Maria again.

"Okay, _ex-_Sister Hayward's fault than Nadie's." continued Kennedy.

"I don't care! As long as I get to see both of them gone, I'll be satisfied! As should you, dear Sister!" spoke Dido.

Kennedy at this point was reaching a critical mass. She didn't know whether to burst out screaming, tell Dido and Maria to shove it and go back home, or to just stand there and take it in as her day grew increasingly stranger and less comprehensible.

"Okay we'll go after both of them," began Kennedy, "but what exactly are you planning on doing again? Making a _wormhole? _Something about satellites?"

"Hm-mm, how observant! For you see, when the moment presents itself, our agent in the field will point a magically-enhanced cylinder at our targets. While he is doing that, over here we'll gather around the ceremonial pit and begin casting our spell. Then, through an array of satellites, we'll beam the finished spell to our agent, where the wormhole would then emerge from the cylinder, and suck in our targets before they even knew what hit them!"

Kennedy did not know whether she should just walk out of the room right at that moment, or to just sit there and stare at Dido.

"Well, what're we waiting for?! Our chance is coming up right now!" yelled out Maria.

Maria pointed towards the screen, which showed Nadie and Ellis descending the stairs form the top of the motel towards the parking lot.

"Sisters! The time for vengeance has come! Let us gather around the ceremonial pit once more!" spoke Dido.

As they took their positions around the pit (which was more like a depression) once more, they observed the screen, waiting from the signal from their agent to cast the spell.

* * *

The Agent, a standard goon wearing a suit and shades, crouched hidden behind a conveniently-place pile of barrels. He gripped the cylinder carefully; he knew his mission was an important one.

He belonged to an organization known as MOOC (Modern Operatives Organization Committee), which supplied many of the crime systems of the world with henchmen. The Mafia, Cartels, Triads, even more esoteric groups such as SERN and Les Soldats, made heavy use of MOOC's seemingly-magical ability to find people willing to throw their lives away for a cause they barely ever understood. However, due to a variety of events such as the collapse of a faction of Les Soldats in Europe, the recent Canaan incident in China, and other such mass slaughters of henchmen by gun-touting heroes, MOOC has fallen on hard times, to the point where the late Douglas Rosenberg could only hire a handful of men to do his bidding.

The situation has only worsened since then, and MOOC hoped that any success, no matter how small, would help them to reclaim the power they once had.

His combead buzzed in his ear.

"Agent Lizard-0, do you read?" asked Dido through the combead.

"Yes. Ready to initiate the operation. Just give me the word."

"Good. Just trail them for now until the spell is ready. Once it is, aim the cylinder at the targets and fire it at them."

"Roger."

He followed them for roughly a minute as they walked along the streets of the quiet town. After that, Dido contacted him again.

"Agent Lizard-0, now!"

Lizard-0 took aim at Nadie and Ellis.

* * *

Roughly several hours earlier, a construction worker had been eating a brief meal before waiting for the bus to take him to his home some 20 miles away from the small town. His lunch consisted of a sandwich, a container of slightly-bad Gazpacho, and a banana. After consuming his wife's home-made sandwich with glee (she always made the best ham sandwiches) and the gazpacho with something less than glee (it had been in the fridge for a week, a week mostly without power due to a blackout), he ate his banana. After eating the banana, he, without any caution on his part, just threw it to the side and walked on to the bus stop, waiting for his ride home. However the universe had a way with taking careless actions and making them profoundly important later on.

* * *

The witches began their incantation. Kennedy was still not so sure it would work. There were three possibilities: It could either not work, and then the three of them would be sucked into the wormhole, falling through it for god knows how long and to where nobody knows. It could work, but get stuck in the system, causing a total failure of the satellite system. It could also work, but completely miss the targets. In either case, she really did not want to be there at that moment.

Dido instructed them to flip over the sheets she had given earlier, to reveal the incancation to speak for the creation of the wormhole.

"Now, my sisters!"

Their haunting chant began, similar to before, but with different words.

_O Ramilisar, O Ramilisar!_

_Saroro dorota eri safior ramito, _

_Fidor ramito arifi Araror!_

A bright sphere formed in the center of the depression, spinning wildly before collapsing itself into a dark sphere. They sang the same verse over and over, growing more frantic as the sphere grew more powerful. A beam than emitted from the ceiling over the pit, and in a moment the sphere was gone.

"The screen, my sisters! Let us observe our handiwork!"

They stared at the screen, eagerly awaiting to see whether they had been successful or had failed.

* * *

Eliis and Nadie moved their way through the streets of the small town, looking in through whatever building was still opened to see if anything caught their eye. They came across to a section still under construction, and decided to walk through the small construction site.

Lizard-0 aimed his cylinder at the girls. He took a step to steady himself as the signal carrying the spell came through. However, that step incidentally was on a banana peel that had been left by the careless action of a construction worker just several hours earlier. Though not as slippery in real life as depicted in cartoons and annoyingly-difficult mascot racing games, it still knocked him enough off balance as to when the spell came through, it came off at a less-than-pleasing angle.

Upon emerging from its digitalized journey, the dark sphere collapsed into its final form, a temporary wormhole that would last just long enough to suck in a few objects before it closed. It seemingly went in the direction of our heroines, but there wouldn't be much of a story to tell after this point if the wormhole actually succeeded in its intended action. Instead, after going a few meters, it swerved off to another side, and sucked in a sandbag, a shovel, a brick, and some poor mouse that happened to be too close to save itself, after which the wormhole promptly closed in upon itself.

Lizard-0 had a deep feeling in the pit of his gut that this was probably his last mission for a while that did not involve him being a meat shield.

* * *

The three witches gawked at the screen in blind, stupid wonder.

"It… missed…" was all Kennedy was able to say.

"Damn it! I knew we shouldn't have hired some second-rank goon from MOOC!" shouted Maria.

Dido just twitched there, angrily counting numbers in her head to prevent her already fragile mind from disintegrating further into madness, teeth grinding against each other in a way that could only imply complete and utter frustration.

* * *

Ellis and Nadie concluded their walk in about an hour, having found nothing really too interested besides a shop that sailed various bizarre trinkets that had closed several hours earlier. Despite the fact that they were ultimately unsuccessful in finding anything of great interest, they were nonetheless happy as they walked back to their room, having enjoyed the tome together on the walk. They had mostly been silent, the only real conversation having happened when Ellis thought she heard someone following them, only to realize it had been some poor guy that had tripped on something, and had proceeded to curdling himself into a ball and sink into what was obviously a state of inner turmoil.

They were beginning their preparations for sleep when the weird, awkward feeling that had occurred twice that day returned to them. It might have been sparked by Nadie stripping to her shirt and underwear, or it might have started when Ellis took off her top to change into a night shirt, revealing the fact that she had been going braless (no big surprise, as she still had very miniscule breasts, and felt no need for one). Nonetheless, that feeling was back, and the both of them desperately wanted it to go away.

"Nadie," Ellis began, but then became indecisive to what she wanted to say. She knew what she wanted to say, but not exactly _what_ she wanted to say.

"Yeah, Ellis?" spoke Nadie in an attempt to break the silence.

"…I've been thinking, since we've been back on the road for a few days…"

"Yeah?"

"…are you happy travelling again?"

Nadie did not exactly what to say. Sure, she missed the days where they were settled down working for the old couple, and sure, she was going to miss the stability, but the thing that she had been missing for the time that she was there was the feeling she had most of her life, wandering from place to place, not knowing what tomorrow may bring.

"Of course, Ellis. Why wouldn't I be-" she stopped as she noticed tears beginning to form on Ellis' face. "Ellis, what's wrong? Why are you crying?"

"B-because… I wasn't sure if you wanted to go back or not… I feel so selfish, asking you to leave the first stability you've felt in life, just because I wanted to go travelling ag-" Ellis stopped as Nadie embraced her.

"Ellis… please don't cry… you weren't being selfish at all. Truth be told, I wanted to go back out on the road again. I just was having a hard time deciding." She spoke as she brushed her fingers through Ellis' hair. "All you did was helping me realize how I felt."

Ellis began to smile.

"Really?" she spoke as tears rolled down her eyes.

"Yes. Now, how about we lie down and have a nice, relaxing sleep, okay?" said Nadie as she wiped the tears away with her hand.

"Y-yes sir!" affirmed Ellis, as the two of them went to the bed, got under the covers, and slept, Nadie still holding Ellis close to her.

That thought of hers was back again, being beat-up as always but this time, Nadie was sure that it was at least punching back.

* * *

VVV Please Read VVV

To the El Cazador fans reading this (as there seems to be an enormous absence of a fandom for this show in general, nonetheless on ), please feel free to review. I know I've probably committed Terminal Sin by beginning the story with original characters (and making you swim through three and a half pages to get to Nadie and Ellis), but I hope you'll endure it, because they're going to be the antagonists from this point out. As to why, it has to do with some of my misgivings regarding the background plot elements, such as the witches coven, the whole deal with the ninja-demons randomly popping up but never doing anything after their first appearance, and everything else in the story that popped up and was never explained again. Though I love the story, as the plot had way more to do with the bond between Ellis and Nadie, these are just things that bug a person like me who wants everything in a plot to have a purpose.

And there you have it. The first chapter to my ambitious Action/Dramedy/Parody story about the conspiracy of a clutch of witches and their malevolent and incompetent plans for an unknowing Ellis and Nadie. I hope you've enjoyed yourselves, and will continue to do so as I continue this little project of mine.


	2. Dido's Fury

_Disclaimer: I do not own El Cazador de la Bruja. It is the respectful property of Bee-Train and any licensing companies thereof. I am making no money off of this, nor do I plan to._

Episode 2: Dido's Fury

Dido was not pleased. She made this readily apparent through the action of her hitting her head against the wall repeatedly.

"Stupid, stupid, stupid, stupid!"

_You know, this was not an entirely unpredictable chain of events _thought Kennedy to herself.

"So why the hell did we hire that guy, anyway?" asked Maria.

"I. Don't. Know. I. Thought. Something. Like. This. Would. Be. Simple!" spoke Dido as she punctuated her words with more bangs of her head.

"You're going to get a concussion if you keep doing that, you know." Spoke Kennedy.

"Yeah, and then you would be as dumb as that MOOC guy! He's more useless than my good for nothing husband! Just goes to show just how useless men in general are!" spoke Maria.

Dido stopped her wall-banging for a moment.

"Maria, could you repeat that last part one more time?" Dido asked.

"What? That men are useless in general?"

Dido raised a finger, lowered it, and hit her head a few more times after adopting the look somebody had when they had an idea, but then forgot it. She stopped banging completely after a moment.

"Maria, that's it! Why didn't I think of it before?"

"Think of what?" asked a perplexed Maria.

"We shouldn't have to rely on men, human beings, to do our work for us!"

_Oh, crap. What is she getting at?_

"Sisters, we are witches! Now, what is among our powers as witches?"

There was silence for a moment as Kennedy and Maria pondered the question.

"Well, if we were able to reach our true potential, we'd be able to create elements out of nothing, manipulate fire and ice, bring people back from the dead, etc." spoke Maria. "But what exactly are you getting at?"

"What I'm getting at, dear sister, is that we're not using the resources at our disposal! What we are not doing is something that even the Council had half the brains to do!"

"And that is?"

_No. No. I know what she is thinking, and I do not like it._

"Well, what are traditionally associated with witches?"

"Brooms, cloaks, cauldrons?"

"Close. What we need to do is summon our familiars. What we need to do…"

_Oh, by the gods!_

"…is summon demons to do our work! Do we not rule the night?"

* * *

A tall field stretched out as far as the eye could see. The sky was bright, and everywhere there seemed a gleam. Atop a nearby hill an old man stood, looking out at the field before him.

"I see that things have become interesting. These three witches do not know what they are getting themselves into. Furthermore, I am concerned for the sake of those nice young ladies that I met a while back. They may be in for a rough time in the foreseeable future."

He stopped speaking and closed his eyes for a moment.

"Especially since _he _is out and about."

* * *

Ellis slept peacefully through the night. Nadie, on the other hand, did not.

She experienced a rather surreal dream, to frightening to be a pleasant one, yet too peaceful to be a nightmare. She saw herself in the desert, atop of a large hill. She was young, no more than ten, she would reckon. Her cloak was wrapped around her, concealing all beneath. She heard a flute in the air.

"Kokopelli… spirits… why?"

The only thing that answered her was the wind and the flute.

She began walking down the hill towards the desert below, having no clear purpose in mind.

_WHERE ARE YOU GOING, YOUNG GIRL? WHAT PURPOSE DO YOU HAVE IN MIND?_

"I don't know where I'm going. All I know is that I don't want to be here."

_BUT WHAT, EXACTLY, IS HERE?_

"It doesn't matter! All I know is that I don't want to be here!"

_ARE YOU TRYING TO RUN AWAY FROM SOMETHING?_

"No! And if I am, it's none of your damn business!"

_AND HOW DO YOU KNOW WHERE YOU ARE GOING IS GOING TO BE BETTER THAN HERE?_

Nadie began running now. "I told you, I don't care where here is, and I don't care where I'm going to!"

_BUT DON'T YOU HAVE ANYTHING YOU CARE ABOUT? ANYTHING YOU STRIVE TO DO?_

"No! And what does it matter? Mom's dead, my village is dead, everyone and everything I care for is dead! As far as I'm concerned, I'm dead myself!" Tears began to flow from her eyes now.

_BUT HOW CAN YOU BE DEAD? YOU'RE RUNNING, AND TALKING. YOU HAVE A BODY, CLOTHING, A NAME, EVERYTHING. HOW CAN YOU BE DEAD?_

"I don't have a name! I'm nobody, absolutely nobody!"

_IS THAT WHAT YOU WISH? TO BE A NOBODY?_

"Yes! I don't care about anything, not even myself! I might as well not exist! From now on I'm nobody! Zilch! Nothingess!"

Sucking in air, she gave out in one large burst:

"I'M NADIE!"

She lost her footing and fell, her arms scraping into the hard earth. She began crying, beating her fists on the ground.

_BUT HOW CAN THAT POSSIBLY BE TRUE? DO YOU NOT CARE FOR SOMETHING?_

"No, I don't care for anything!"

_THEN WHAT ABOUT ELLIS?_

She got up, a confused look showing on her dirty, tear-streaked face.

"What? What's Ellis?"

She woke up then. Ellis lay next to her, her arms clutching the pillow to her face. Nadie realized that Ellis had also pulled most of the covers off.

"No fair." She said with a bit of humor in her voice. She then realized that her face was wet.

"Huh? Was I actually crying?"

She sat up and stretched. She usually didn't sleep on the bed when they were out and about on the road, preferring her old custom of sitting in a chair in order to be able to respond to danger. She just couldn't resist the night before, however, largely because she wanted Ellis to be at ease before falling asleep.

_What about Ellis… _she thought to herself. She feel back onto the bed again.

_Man, what a weird dream…_

* * *

"Dido, are you serious?" spoke Kennedy.

"Of course I'm serious, dear sister. When am I not?"

"But why would you want to summon demons?!"

"Because we need a taskforce that will be able to do our work for us! Also, we have no staff on base, so of course we're going to need them to do that as well."

"So, wait, wait, what you're telling me is that you want to use an ancient ritual currently forbidden by the council to summon a force of demons… to do your laundry, essentially?"

"Well, of course not just that! We're going to use them to kill the two girls we're after."

"I think you missed my point."

"No, I think I know exactly what you're trying to say! And I thank you for the concern."

"Concern?"

"Yeah. Thanks. If it weren't for you, it would have completely slipped my mind."

"Huh?"

"You reminded me that we're going to have to make our demons more lethal than what are predecessors strived for."

_…What?_

"Well, if you think about it," began Maria, "it was pretty damn stupid, the first try at it. I mean, what's the point of creating an army of demons if you aren't going to give them decent fighting ability? I mean, it was a joke! Arming them with handguns? Having them spy on Rosenberg and yet not doing anything else besides stalking him on his grounds? It was a pretty stupid move, if you ask me!"

"Well observed, Sister Maria!" spoke Dido. "I mean, sure, they can travel pretty quickly, and they're hard to kill, but what kind of real threat did they actually pose after their introduction? They could have easily resumed the chase when it was night again. Why didn't that do it? It is such things that I wish to avoid with our own plans. Now, come, sisters! Let us summon our minions!"

_…no, Dido. No. I just would like to call it a day and sleep. _

However, Kennedy knew the likelihood of that happening was about as likely as a slug suddenly sprouting wings and flying. So, with a sigh of resignation, she went off to participate in the summoning of the demons, as much as she really did not want to.

* * *

After waking up, dressing, and taking care of basic health care such as brushing teeth, Ellis and Nadie were on the road yet again. As usual, there was little talk between the two travelers. Nadie would focus on driving, and Ellis would sit, watching as the scenery went by. Now and again, some topic of conversation would pop up, and they would converse for a few moments; however, the effect of the wind caused by the rushing of a roofless vehicle made talking for long periods tiresome and difficult.

Anyway, it was more enjoyable this way. Ellis would take careful note every time she saw Nadie glancing at her from the corners of her eyes, and wondered if Nadie did the same as well for her glances. Somehow, it felt special in a way, this mode of silent communication.

Though she had found happiness with travelling with Nadie, Ellis still felt the struggle of trying to give meaning to her existence. At the current moment, her meaning was directly tied to Nadie's happiness. Though they were both happy living with the old couple from before, Ellis could feel that Nadie really wanted something more than just being settled down. Perhaps one day they would both be able to settle down contently (preferably with each other), but at the current time, at least Ellis thought, that what was needed for their happiness was wandering the world. Maybe they might find a true meaning somewhere along the way; perhaps not. Ellis did not really care at the moment, as she was currently focusing her attention on Nadie, and devoted most of her thought process to deciding how to ask the question she wanted to ask from the day before.

After thinking for a while, she gave up trying to figure out how to phrase it, stretched, and decided to take a small nap. Maybe in her sleep she'll figure it out.

* * *

After working through the night into the morning, preparations had finally been completed for the summoning. In order to create a demonic minion, one needed to provide a base for constructing their bodies. In olden days, this would have involved either clay or boiled human or animal flesh. While still in a semi-liquid state, they would call upon the demonic spirits to occupy themselves within the stew of material and create bodies for themselves as they saw fit.

Nowadays, with the advent of plastics and rubbers, a concoction of rubber was boiled, and the demons were called to form shapes from that. The end result, in Kennedy's opinion, usually made them look like monsters from some tokusatsu show. In other words, it made them look completely ridiculous and none-threatening. She was not alone in this regard; the resultant shape many demons took were dubbed "Triceraninjas" by some witches for the odd shapes of their heads and the fact that they acted like ninja.

Spiky-headed ninja demons that looked like they were from a toku flick.

_Truly, if there was any sign that witches were irrevocably doomed, it would be this._

The three of them stood on a platform that ringed a large vat of molten rubber. Kennedy made a mental note to herself to inquire Dido as to just who was funding this entire thing. Dido was flipping through a grimoire, looking for the right ritual.

"Aha, there we go! 'How to summon up the demonic spirits'!"

After a few more moments of reading, Maria grumbled and spoke up.

"Dido, if you would kindly speed up the process? I haven't slept in nearly twenty-four hours!"

"Patience, Maria! Soon, our minions will be at hand, and our wrath shall descend upon the two who make mock us with their very existence!"

_Would it really hurt you to say their names? What's with the avoidance?_

"Ha! I have found it!"

"Do we have to sing again? Because if so, count me out of it! I'm tired enough as it is! Plus, I can barely understand a word of what we say!" spoke Maria.

"Do not worry, dear Maria! There is no singing here! Just a general invocation. Are you ready, my sisters?"

Maria nodded her head. Kennedy felt compelled to do the same.

"Alright. When I am speaking, and if I raise my left hand, you are to repeat as I say. If I hold up my right hand, you must do the same!" spoke Dido.

"Could we just get this over with? I feel like a llama carrying a piano!" spoke Maria.

"As you wish!"

"Oh great ones, mighty forces that lurk beyond the shadows of our perception, heed our call!"

Dido raised her left hand.

"Oh great ones, you who slither and crawl between the shadows of reality, those who bring doom to man, those who stalk the unwitting in the night!"

Dido lowered her hand

"Oh, great ones, we-"

Dido stopped. Maria and Kennedy were speaking along with her.

"Oh, sorry." Spoke Kennedy.

"You should be. Now, where was I: Oh, great ones, we beseech you to heed our call!"

She raised her left hand again.

"Oh, great ones! We have prepared substances from which you may make your bodies!"

Dido lowered her hand again.

"Thus, oh great on-"

Dido stopped again when she heard Kennedy and Maria repeat.

"Ahem."

There was an awkward pause, and then Dido picked up from where she left off.

"Thus, oh great ones, come down! Emerge into our reality! Shape bodies as you see fit, so that you may do our bidding!"

She raised her right hand.

"Oh, gr-stop, stop, just stop!"

Kennedy and Maria began repeating what she said.

"What?" asked Kennedy.

"Sisters, you are to repeat when I raise my _left hand, _not my _right."_

After another stint of awkwardness, Dido continued, albeit speaking quickly.

"Oh, great ones! Come, come, come, immerse yourselves in our concoction and live in this world!"

In a dramatic gesture, Dido raised both of her arms at once. However, this resulted in the book dropping to the floor.

"Well, anyway, great ones! Come! Come, great ones! Come!" they spoke inunison.

The air filled with heat and static, and then biting cold. The concoction of rubber began to froth, and after several moments figure began leaping out from the vat onto the floor below. After their features dried, it revealed that the demon had taken on the triceraninja appearance, much to Kennedy's chagrin. After most of the rubber in the vat was gone, Dido leaped down from the platform to the floor below. Though she was easily able to do this, being a witch and everything, it still hurt upon impact.

Most of the minions were yellow, white, or violet in color, with some blue and red ones here and there. There were also several green ones. A white member with a red colored head approached.

"Greetings, Sister Dido. You may call me Big Red. I am the leader of these demons you have summoned. What is your bidding?"

"Greetings, Big Red! If you are able to lead your kin after me, we shall make our way to the meeting room! Come, and I shall show you your targets!"

The other minions gathered behind Big Red and followed him, who in turn was following Dido and the other witches. When they had all gathered in the room, Dido went over to the control console and flipped some meaningful-looking switches, resulting in the large screen above to come back on.

"You turned off everything?" asked Kennedy.

"Of course! Do you think I want a large bill or something?"

_I had no idea that power companies supplied private groups with the objective of killing two young girls. Must keep that in mind when I'm trying to figure out who's funding all of this._

The screen, copying the image from the obsidian mirror, showed Ellis and Nadie on the road.

"This is your target, Big Red!" said Dido, pointing at the screen.

"Got it. Steal the jeep. We will head out in-"

"No, no, not the jeep! The two girls in the jeep! Listen up: I want these two bitches dead by Thrusday, you got it?"

She pumped her arms in the air.

"Now, go after those two, and kill them!"

* * *

Ellis and Nadie had stopped for a while in a town they happened across. After stopping by the local Amigo Tacos, they went off and window-shopped, not really having any money to actually buy something. That is, if they wanted gas and food money, at least. Though Nadie had memorized that information from several of Jodie's credit cards (she swiped them from her wallet once when she was visiting), it was revealed to her this morning by the motel clerk that the card had expired the day before and could not be accepted.

Ellis was able to get them out of paying, however, by mentioning how they'll tell everyone they meet that it was a nice motel. In return for having to carry around a bunch of tourism pamphlets for the developing town, they were free from paying any expenses, and were even given an on-the-house breakfast in the diner next door. However, that token turned out useless, as the diner was closed that day due to the owner slipping on a banana peel while taking a shortcut to work through a construction site.

"Hey, Nadie, check it out. They're planning on opening a museum of cactus charms in the town."

"Eh, that's great, Ellis." Nadie doubted that the museum, or any of the other tourist traps in the pamphlets, were actually going to draw any significant amount of people to the town.

"By the way, Nadie."

"Yes?"

"What happened to the rest of the pamphlets?"

When they had stopped for gas, Ellis went to use the restroom. Nadie took the opportunity to take all of the pamphlets and promptly dump them inside the back of a pickup truck nearby.

"Oh, those. Yeah, a sudden gust came by when we were at the gas station earlier. Carried off all of them except this one, really. What a shame."

"Yeah…" Ellis knew that Nadie was fibbing, but she didn't care.

After a moment more of walking, Ellis saw an ice cream parlor. She turned to Nadie, an expectant look on her face.

"Oh, do you want some ice cream?"

Ellis nodded in confirmation.

"Okay, I'll buy you some. But!" Nadie pointed her finger at Ellis. "You have to do some push-ups later! Can't let that figure of yours disappear!"

"Yes, sir!" said Ellis with a salute. Nadie loved it when she did that. She loved it even more when she smiled.

_WHAT ABOUT ELLIS?_

Nadie remembered that line from her dream.

_What about Ellis? Well, really, she's cute. She's nice. She's surprisingly insightful sometimes. And she needs someone to protect her._

_AND WHAT OF YOU?_

Nadie was slightly surprised hearing that, as it was not in her dream.

_Well, I guess as far as I go, I guess I'm her protector. And furthermore…_

_YES?_

_…she's mine as well. From myself._

Nadie heard the sound of the flute again. It was a familiar sound, and she reflected upon it.

_I wonder if it is you, Kokopelli, who is doing this._

"Nadie?"

"Hm?"

"Is something the matter? You have this distant look in your eyes."

"Oh. That. Um, well, I was just thinking back on some earlier point in time, that's all."

"Oh. Okay."

As they walked back to the jeep, Ellis knew that once again that Nadie had stretched the truth. However, that did not matter at the moment, nor would it ever: it just meant that Ellis had to try harder to get the truth out her.

But as stated before, Ellis thought there were more important things at hand. Such as enjoying an ice cream with the person who was most precious to you in the world.

* * *

In the distance, night was beginning to form, and as the shadows lengthened, the demons stepped out of the shadows. At their forefront was Big Red, gaze set out in the distance.

"Soon, we shall make our move."

"And then," spoke another demon, this one purple. "they shall be eliminated."

VVV Please Read VVV

Hello, again! I am very excited that my story is one chapter in but is already being watched by several people! That's like, what, roughly a tenth of the entire fandom? (joking). But anyway, I'm sorry for being so late with chapter 2. Finals, novels, social events, and portable gaming systems will do that to your free time. I also made the foolish mistake of starting this a month ago in November, in which I participated (and successfully completed) NaNoWriMo, in which you must type a 50,000 word+ novel within the month. The prize: self-satisfaction. However, in doing so I needlessly delayed the writing of this fanfiction, and yet again, I apologize.

I plan on making full use of this Winter break. I plan on making "Season 1" of this fanfiction last for sixteen "episodes" (read as: chapters). And since I've heard from other sources that my classes next semester are not very work-intensive, I plan on completing "Season 2" and even "Season 3" if people show enough interest, each one consisting of 16 "episodes" which will vary in length and overall relevance to the plot.

I also plan on doing crossovers within this fanfiction, but with which series I'm not going to reveal, as it would ruin the surprise. However, in order to not spoil oneself to a show they have yet to watch, I'll put in big, friendly letters WARNING, SPOILERS to mark areas that may ruin the viewing experience of a show I'm crossovering with that you have yet to see/complete.

As stated in my first post-chapter rant, this fanfiction is going to be a humorous expansion to the series that will try to explain some of the weirder parts of the plot. There are going to be serious moments, of course. Kind of like a Discworld novel, where the overall tone is comedic, yet it can be surprisingly deep and serious at the same time. Also, I'm going to expand upon aspects of the characters that the show neglected to focus on (Nadie being the sole survivor of her home village, Ellis having a somewhat nihilistic viewpoint of reality, etc.)

Well, I've taken more of your time than necessary now. I hope you've enjoyed reading this far, and will continue enjoying it throughout. The next chapter will be out sometime in the next few days. Also, please bear with any of the spelling/grammatical issues in the first chapter (or this one, for that matter); I shall correct them when I am properly motivated (nachos and classic power metal may be involved).

Anyway, toodles.


	3. Enter Lirio!

A bus carried Ricardo and Lirio over a desert road. As usual, the two of them sat in the back. Lirio was currently looking through an animal picture book that Ricardo had bought for her, and Ricardo was slightly nodding-off, head tilted back but with one eye partially opened.

He had been hired for a simple job: all he had to do was find a man and shake him up so he wouldn't squeal on the hang he was ditching. However, he did not want Lirio to be tagging along with him, so he had arranged for Nadie and Ellis to meet up with them in the town he was heading towards. They were practically the only people he would trust Lirio with in his absence.

Lirio tugged at his jacket sleeve and pointed towards her book. It showed a picture of a bird with a large bill.

"Oh, what a pretty bird. Do you like it, Lirio?"

Lirio, silent as usual, just giggled and nodded her head.

"I see. So, you like… um…" _Damn, what is the name of that kind of bird? Toucan? No, something similar…_

"Hornbill!"

"Right, hornbill. Got it."

Though he was slightly surprised that she had spoken, it was not entirely unexpected. Since the events that transpired at Wiñay Marka, Lirio had begun to speak more often. She was far away from being able to hold conversations, but at least she strung words into meaningful sentences now. Ricardo was glad for this; he was afraid that she would never learn how to talk properly. Whenever he tried to ask what had inspired her to start speaking more, all she would do is giggle and shrug.

_It had to do with what she said that one time, when Ellis and Nadie died for a moment._

Ricardo often wondered what had spurred her to speak at that moment, but figured it was probably the intensity of the situation. But the words that came out of her mouth he did not quite feel were from her, as if she had heard them from somewhere else and had repeated them, or that someone else was using her to speak.

Regardless of the reason, it had sparked something within Lirio, and she had been speaking more with every day. She even insisted that she make a recording of herself to send to Nadie and Ellis, asking them to come visit. To be honest, it was one of the happier moments of his life. Though Lirio was not his biological daughter, she might as well have been. DNA-relation or not, she was under his care, and that was all that mattered in the end.

Ricardo then thought about the relation between Ellis and Nadie.

_The two of them are definitely closer than just friends. And I've seen Ellis get jealous if Nadie was spending a large amount of time talking to another man. But what exactly are they? Nadie definitely has an interest in men, but does that necessarily preclude an interest in wo- wait, wait a moment. You're jumping to conclusions, Ricardo. Why are you even interested in their personal life in the first place?_

_It's because I want to see the two of them happy. And from what I've seen, they're happiest when they're with each other._

_And what exactly do they do when they're with each other? They definitely cuddle, that's for certain. But do they do more than that?_

_Forget about it. It's none of my damn business anyway. _

_Is the very fact that I think about it at all make me a pervert?_

Ricardo felt suddenly flustered and tipped his hat over his face. Lirio looked questioningly up at him for a moment, giggled, and went back to her book.

Little did Ricardo know that what he was doing was the act of "Relationshipping", otherwise known as "Shipping". Of course, not really being involved with any online fandoms, he would not be familiar with the term. It did not change, however, the fact that he was doing it.

Ricardo tried to think of other things. He thought of what to eat for dinner. He thought of where they should stay for the night. And he thought of Hornbills.

* * *

Ellis was having that dream again. She had it several times before, and she was in it again, a clear blue sky, a golden field before her. She was younger than she was, probably around 8 or 9. She was wearing a simple white dress and simple sandals.

_Where am I?_

She walked forward, moving her way through paths in the field. After walking for what seemed like a very long time, she saw somebody up ahead, a young girl with long red hair with blue jewels in it, her body shrouded in a cloak.

_Is that Nadie?_

The girl turned around, revealing herself to be a young Nadie. She stared as Ellis for a long time.

_Those eyes…. Her eyes aren't as they normally are. They're full of sadness and doubt._

_ELLIS_

_Huh? Who's there?_

_ELLIS, HOW DO YOU VIEW YOUR FRIEND?_

_My friend? Do you mean Nadie?_

_HOW IS IT DO YOU SEE YOUR FRIEND? WHAT WORD WOULD YOU USE TO DESCRIBE YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH HER?_

_Well… to be perfectly honest, I love her. _

_LOVE?_

_Yes, love._

_BUT WHAT KIND OF LOVE IS IT?_

_What kind?_

_THERE ARE MORE KINDS OF LOVE THAN MOST LANGUAGES HAVE WORDS FOR._

_Is that so? If it is, could you please describe some of them?_

_FROM THE ANCIENT GREEKS, WE HAVE FOUR WORDS FOR LOVE: STORGE, LOVE FOR FAMILY; PHILOS, LOVE FOR FRIENDS; EROS, ROMANTIC LOVE; AND AGAPE, UNCONDITIONAL LOVE. NOW, I ASK YOU AGAIN, ELLIS: WHAT KIND OF LOVE DO YOU HAVE FOR NADIE?_

_Well… I… I don't…_

_DO YOU DOUBT YOUR FEELINGS, ELLIS?_

_No! No, I don't doubt them!_

_THEN WHY DO YOU HESITATE?_

_Because… I don't know… how she feels…_

The image of Nadie began to shimmer and fade until it was gone.

"Nadie, wait! Nadie!"

_UNTIL YOU ARE SURE OF YOUR FEELINGS, ELLIS, YOUR RELATIONSHIP WITH HER SHALL REMAIN UNCERTAIN. _

"Please! Please, give back Nadie!"

_IT IS FOR YOU TO FIND THE PATH TO HER, ELLIS! NOW GO!_

* * *

"Nadie… Nadie… Nadie!" muttered Ellis in her sleep. She had fallen asleep as they drove down the road again, heading towards the town where they had agreed to meet up with Ricardo to watch after Lirio. The sun was setting in the West, tingeing the desert sky a myriad of colors.

"Hm? What is it, Ellis?"

"Na… hn… huh?"

"You were speaking in your sleep, Ellis."

"I… was?"

"Yeah."

Ellis' face adopted a slight red coloration. "W-what was I saying?"

"I couldn't make out most of it, but it mostly sounded like you saying my name a lot."

"Huh?!"

"Eh, don't worry, it's nothing to be embarrassed about!"

"Really?"

"Yeah! I mean, you've caught me saying your name in a dream before, haven't you?"

"Yes."

"So see? Nothing to worry about! You were probably having a nightmare, weren't you?"

"Y-yeah, that was it."

They drove on, seeing the town they were going to be meeting Ricardo and Lirio at up ahead. After a minute or so they were within the town, searching for a "Hotel de la Luna" where Ricardo had rented a room for the two of them and Lirio for the night. After ten minutes of looking around and asking people for directions, they finally found the place. It was a fairly generic place, but looked comfortable enough. Waiting outside were the familiar forms of Ricardo and Lirio. They parked the jeep and got out, Lirio running to greet them.

"Lirio!" they jointly shouted with joy. Ellis scooped Lirio up into her arms in a big hug, after which Lirio jumped out and glomped Nadie.

"Howdy." Spoke Ricardo.

"Hey, Ricardo. What's up?" responded Nadie.

"All's good. Just going to get this business out of the way, and then Lirio and I will leave in the morning. I'm sure you can take good care of her."

"You have no need to worry, amigo. We love taking care of Lirio."

"Good. Well, then, just let me speak to her for a moment and I'll be off."

Ricardo went up to Lirio, putting a hand on her head.

"Okay, Lirio. Be a good girl, okay? I'll be back soon enough."

Lirio gave a sharp nod and an enthusiastic "Nn!" in confirmation. She then hugged Ricardo tightly.

"I'll see you later, then." He gave one last pat on her head and turned to walk away.

"Bye, Ricardo! See you later!" spoke Ellis.

"Later."

As Lirio ran back to the two girls and began leading them inside, dark forces watched from a distance, waiting to strike out at our heroines. Little did these dark forces know that their machinations for slaying had a wrench stuck inside of them, and that wrench was a small, young girl with pinkish hair and a boomerang.

* * *

A truck drove towards Dido's compound. After several moments it stopped before the quaint, pseudo-Latin-American-style house that served as the front for the base. A tall, thin man stepped out. He wore a wrinkled grey suit, and his dark, oily hair was done in a messy ponytail. Most guesses at his age would place him in his late 30s or early 40s. He had dark brown skin, and most would guess that he was a member of some southwestern tribe of Native Americans. He went up to the door and ringed the doorbell. After waiting what seemed to be an eternity, the door opened to reveal Dido.

"Ah, welcome, Sr. Becoyo!"

"Um, Dido," asked Kennedy. "Who's this?"

"This is Sr. Becoyo, one of my main contacts! He's arranged for most of what you've seen so far."

"Yes, that is correct, Senorita Dido! And who may this young woman I see next to you be?"

"Oh, this is my partner, Sister Kennedy."

"A pleasure meeting you, Senorita Kennedy!" he gave a small bow as he spoke.

"Erm, hello, Sr. Becoyo." _I do not trust this man. There's just something about him that's… off. He has the air of one who deals in mischief, like a trickster form folklore._

"So, Sr. Becoyo, is what I asked for in the box?"

"Indeed it is! Inside, you'll find the essential salts you need for the resurrection. I shall assume you know the proper incantations for bringing up the dead from them, am I right?"

"Yeah, yeah, Yog-Sothoth or somethi-"

"Wait, Dido." Spoke Kennedy. "What do you mean by 'bringing up the dead'? 'Essential salts'? Just what on Earth are you trying to d-"

"Easy, my sister! All shall be clear in due time! But first, we must get the box inside!"

Several minions emerged from the house to unload the truck. A thought occurred to Kennedy then.

"Wait. What are you getting out of this in return, Sr. Becoyo?"

"Well, that's a very decent question! To be honest, I'm doing it just because I'm such a good man, really! A little while ago your friend here was seeking a man who can arrange for the construction of a secret base and whatnot! So, here I am, doing more things out of good will!"

_Of the words I would use to describe "bringing up the dead", "good will" is near the bottom of the list._

As the minions went inside with the box, Kennedy just stood there, wondering what on Earth was happening right now, and fearing for the horrible things that are going to happen. Very, very soon, unfortunately enough.

VVV More Notes form the Author VVV

Another short chapter. I wanted to put more in it, but I felt like I made you guys wait long enough for it. The last thing I want to do annoy the few El Cazador fans on this website, or even worse, cause them to lose interest. To make up for it, the next chapter is likely to be quite long. Without spoiling anything, a certain someone is going to be brought back up from "Essential Salts". Just what are essential salts? Why, that is just a fancy term for ashes. According to Borellus, one may raise from the dead a person if they have properly preserved "Essential Saltes" (sic) of the person. Of course, I only know about this because I'm an H.P. Lovecraft fan, and have read The Case of Charles Dexter Ward. Yog-Sothoth is the entity that must be invoked in order for the bringing up of the dead to work. However, it should be noted that there is also a warning that comes along with it: Do not raise up what you can't put down. Seeing how Dido lacks any sense of the word caution within her, she is most likely just making more trouble for herself than necessary. The next chapter shall involve Lirio doing things with Nadie and Ellis while unknowingly foiling the plans of the triceraninjas with her innocent antics.

This is Fry, signing off.


	4. Girls, Mysteries, Plots, and Hornbills

Small little note before the chapter: I am sorry for the long wait. Many more things happened this month than expected. At least I now have a job to show for it, I guess. Then there's the matter about writing. Writing is a funny thing, you know: you love it, until the point you actually have to organize words in your head and put it down in some form. Then you absolutely loathe it. Douglas Adams, famous for his The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, mentioned more than once that a writer's least favorite thing to do is actually writing. It is hard to disagree with him. However, I feel incredibly guilty, especially since there are now several new followers to this fanfic, and I have done absolutely nothing to give them any confidence I'll continue. The fandom is not as dead as it seems (though it may be only mostly dead), and to reward the fans for their diligence, and my readers for their patience, I present an extra-long chapter. What sets this chapter apart from the others is that it starts an actual story-arc, whereas previous chapters were just a loose sequence of events. So here it is: hope you enjoy.

* * *

"You know, this is all your fault." Said Kennedy to Dido as they both sat crammed underneath a desk in a small office in Guatemala.

Outside, the sounds of gunfire were occasionally heard, as well as other, nastier sounds, like the sound of a thin piece of metal slicing through some unfortunate bloke's arm, or the sound of something gelatinous munching on the bones of yet another poor bastard.

They both tensed up when they heard the sound of running boots outside the office door, but relaxed slightly as they heard them disappear down the corridor.

_How the hell did this all happen? _Kennedy thought to herself.

Which is actually a decent question: Why were these two witches, last seen in Dido's headquarters in an undisclosed country, hiding for their lives underneath a desk in Guatemala? Why were the sounds of carnage being heard from outside? Just _what _was the gelatinous-sounding thing doing munching on bones in the first place? And where do our erstwhile heroes, Nadie, Ellis, Lirio and Ricardo fall into all of this?

It all began roughly five days earlier.

* * *

Kennedy was unsure of how all of this was going to work out. She was even more unsure as to what exactly Dido was doing with the "Essential Salts" of a person.

Dido had drawn a circle with chalk upon the floor and placed the jar containing the "Salts" within it. She had a look of glee upon her face (well, at least what was visible) and joyfully bounded on over to an area of the floor near the circle to pick up some candles and placed them strategically around the circle and lit them.

She then ordered several demons to haul a large tub of what looked like blood, fat, and other tissues over to where the circle containing the salts was.

"Um, where did you get all of this, er, raw material?"

"Oh, Sr. Becoyo supplied it. Said it was from cadavers from morgues. He used people who wanted their bodies to be used 'for science' and thus was able to procure some decent amounts of material."

_Great. Yet another reason not to trust the guy._

"So, what exactly is it for?"

"Good question, dear sister. It is to avoid some trouble later on."

_Dido actually thinking things through? That's rare._

Kennedy looked around, and it suddenly struck her that she wanted to ask Dido a question.

"So, where's Maria been?"

"Oh. She has to occasionally go home to Chile. Her cover story is that she's visiting a friend she met a while ago on a cruise. Of course, Maria's never been on a cruise, but her husband doesn't care. He's largely just glad that she's not around."

_So why can't I go back to my home in the States and take care of my dog? Poor thing hasn't seen me for two weeks._

Kennedy did some mental math and figured out that there must have been more than just these things that Becoyo delivered, and the more she thought about it, the more it troubled her. She did not like how things were going, and was quite worried that things were about to get much worse.

As it so goes, she was absolutely right.

* * *

It was about this time where Ellis, Lirio and Nadie were in their room, getting ready to go out for dinner at a restaurant that Nadie and Ellis had seen on the way to the hotel. Lirio sat upon the bed, eagerly showing Ellis, sitting next to her, her animal picture book. Yet again, she seemed captivated by one critter in particular: a hornbill. She smiled and she giggled, and Eliis smiled and giggled with her. Nadie was busily changing from her blue shorts into longer jeans, and couldn't help but to smile at the scene. She loved it when she saw Ellis happy. She loved it when Ellis smiled. This happened rather infrequently, a smile of true joy, so she made sure that she saw as much as she could while the moment lasted.

Suddenly, she felt that odd feeling from many times before, and tried as she could, she just could not place it. She felt that it was rather important, like somebody was trying to point them in the right direction away from a cliff, but she still did not know what it was (at least consciously). Being lost in this train of thought, she did not realize that she was staring. It was hearing Lirio's giggle that brought to her attention that she and Ellis were staring right back at Nadie, the look on their face saying "You've been staring over here for quite a while, is everything okay?"

"Oh, um, right! Is everyone ready?"

Ellis and Lirio both indicated with a sound and a nod that they were, the three girls disembarked from their room, Lirio bringing along with her the book and, most curiously, her boomerang. This would turn out to be largely prescient on her part, as it would help the girls avoid almost certain doom.

* * *

Ricardo stood in an alleyway, leaning against the wall. He glanced at his watch, and let out a sigh. He had spent the past hours walking around the various places his target hanged out at, trying to put together when and where to expect him. According to most of his sources, his target, Juan Luis Bolon, would always at about 6:35 meet up with a drug distributor, where he would pick up highly unusual substances; things so extreme, says the friends of Juan Luis, that not even the cartels will touch them. And if something is extreme enough that even the cartels won't touch it, it usually wasn't anything good.

He hated it when people didn't keep to schedule. It was 6:40, and every minute Ricardo spent standing in one placed, he knew that he was losing in tracking Juan Luis elsewhere. He would wait five more minutes, and then he would move on to where Juan Luis would go after meeting up with his distributer.

_Hornbills…_

Why was he suddenly thinking about Hornbills? Was it because Lirio seemed to have taken to them recently?

_Speaking of Lirio, I hope she's having fun with Nadie and Ellis._

Which, in turn, set him on a different train of thought: just what was up with those two? He felt horrible for thinking about it so much, but it just wouldn't leave his mind. The two seem perfect for each other: Ellis is the thing that keeps Nadie grounded, and Nadie is the one that is raising Ellis up. It was something about their personalities: Nadie, so brash and confident, yet simultaneously so unsure; Ellis, so naïve and innocent, yet so down in her outlook on life. It's as if their meeting wasn't chance, as if some force was at work in ensuring that the two would one day meet. But that, of course, is a ridiculous line of thought: two people aren't destined to meet each other. Reality just did not work that way. But still, given what had happened the year before in the Andes, he had been forced to reconsider his definition of reality: he had seen strange things before (you usually do in his line of work), but when you see a stone create force fields and lift people up, and you see not just one but two people come back from the dead, all in the same day, it kind of ruins your current image of reality.

And then, once again, he was thinking of hornbills. It was in this line of thought that he almost did not notice the sound of approaching footsteps. When he did, he made good to catch up with lost time and ran around the corner, making sure to keep his eyes peeled both in front and behind him. Fortunately enough for him, two people wearing black hoodies, undoubtedly Juan Luis and his distributor, were both coming from the same direction.

They began speaking to each other, but oddly not in Spanish, which he had expected: he heard instead a different language. He couldn't tell what exactly it was, but from his time spent with Zapatista forces in southern Mexico, it sounded like something in the Maya language family; of course, he was basing this off an incomplete knowledge of Tzotzil, but it was a better guess than nothing.

They spoke for a while, perhaps three minutes, and then after a friendly embrace, they split ways, one of the figures coming back the way they came, the other one coming towards where Ricardo was.

_Okay, this is going to be a piece of cake: I'll just wait here around the corner, and once I know I can get the drop on him, I will._

Ricardo backed up away from the corner by a few spaces, keeping himself flat against the wall, ready to snatch the man about to turn the corner. After waiting for what seemed like a minute, Ricardo became understandably confused as to why the man had not rounded the corner yet. Ricardo glanced around the corner to reveal… nobody.

_I have a feeling…_

Ricardo heard a slight noise behind him. His pulse quickened, his breath slowed.

_…that things are about to get complicated._

Ricardo spun around, fist ready, to find that he had aimed a little bit too far to the right of the person who was behind him. Despite his hostile reaction, the hooded man just stood there, staring at him. From what Ricardo could see, he had very short hair; he may have been even bald. He seemed to be about his mid-twenties. He had a number of small piercings along the bridge of his nose, and his eyes had a deep darkness to them. Despite that, the overall affect was not one of menace, but of calm amusement.

"Please do not try to hurt me. Your efforts are futile. Anyway, I mean absolutely no harm to you, stranger."

Ricardo gathered himself about him.

_Who the hell is this guy?_

"Are you Juan Luis Bolon?"

"Why yes, I am."

"I hear that there are some people looking for you. Your gang, perhaps?"

"And you wish to know why? It does not matter, bounty hunter. I shall inform you of everything you wish to know. Just take a small walk with me; I shall surrender myself to you afterwards. Let's just take a walk, and everything will be made clear."

"Look, Amigo, everything is perfectly clear to me already: your gang doesn't want you squealing on them to the authorities, and"

"Ha ha. Gang? Squealing to the authorities? Just where did you get these ideas from, stranger?"

"From a notice. Your gang is offering a job. Pretty decent pay. Now will you please come along with me and"

"I already said, I will most willingly surrender myself to you, but only after I have explained everything to you. So, please, let us go for a walk."

Ricardo did not know what to do: something about the man screamed suspicious, but he was giving such calm and honest air about himself that he had trouble whether or not to go along with his plan.

"So what will it be, stranger?"

"…okay. On one condition…"

"And that would be?"

Ricardo pulled out his gun, and aimed it at the man.

"You pull anything funny, or if I think for a moment that you may be leading me into a trap, and I put a bullet in your head. Comprende, Amigo?"

"Yes, it makes perfect sense, stranger. Now, let us go."

They walked out from where they were, and after a moment they arrived by a train crossing.

"So, stranger, you see, what you refer to as "my gang" is actually something much more than that."

"And that would be?"

"Well, I wouldn't call it a "religion" because it does not exactly match society's definition of what a religion ought to be; however, calling it a cult would be debasing itself, as it is privy, unlike most other such collections of people, to real truth."

"So?"

"Well, the group I belong to is called El Balám. It is a group of, admittedly, rather thuggish individuals, but it's overall aims are anything but. For you see, El Balám is in possession of a rare item from the days of the Classical Maya civilization: a finely carved, 30-centimeters-long jade jaguar statuette. Such a thing would sell for a fortune on the black market, and even more to a museum; but it is El Balám's great treasure, as it is actually a key."

"A key?"

"Yes, a key, stranger. There is a place in Guatemala, a cave, where if you fit the jaguar statuette into a certain carved recess and turned it three times counter-clockwise, you would open a secret passage into a room containing priceless wall carvings. These wall carvings, stranger, tell strange and horrible truths about mankind's history."

"And those are?"

"It is forbidden for outsiders to know."

"Then why bother telling me?"

"Simple: because I want you to spread a message."

Ricardo looked briefly stunned.

"A message? What do you think I am, a bellboy?"

"No. But one does not have to be a bellboy to carry a message."

Juan Luis stared Ricardo square in the eyes.

"Stranger, what I am about to tell you is what I wish, through acting as a holy ambassador from my group, to cause the True Awakening of Mankind."

"True Awakening? Listen, Amigo, if I thought you were a crazy cultist before, now I def"

"Oh, this is not insanity, stranger. As for the cultist remark, if you are referring to my membership in El Balám, you are gravely mistaken: I was never truly part of El Balám. I was simply using them to achieve what I wanted."

"And what did you get out of it?"

"Why, nothing less than the Jaguar Statuette itself."

"Wait, so you're telling me that you stole this jade jaguar thing?"

"Yes. That was my whole point of being with them."

"And let me guess: that's the real reason why they're after you?"

"Yes. You are more observant than you appear, bounty hunter."

"Thanks for the backhanded comment, but to cut to the main point: where is this statue now?"

"Oh? I gave it to Fra Gregorio."

"Fra… Gregorio?"

"Yes. He is a great shaman from my true group, the one that assigned me to steal the Jaguar Statuette."

"Shaman?"

"Yes. A learned and holy man. It was he who has been meeting me here every evening in the 18th hour. We would exchange information, and he would leave me with gifts."

"Gifts? Like drugs?"

"Oh, no non no, stranger. Nothing as banal as that. What he would give me was whatever I needed to make certain procedures work. It is a horribly intricate business, and I shall not bore you here with the details."

After waiting a moment, Ricardo spoke to Juan Luis again.

"Are you done now?"

"No. Just wait; I am almost finished."

"Well, go on, already. I'm waiting, Amigo."

Juan Luis cleared his throat.

"I wish to share with you now what I know about certain things that have transpired in the last three years in the world, for it relates to my true calling, the True Awakening of Mankind. Three groups in the last three years have tried various ways to go about this most noble task: one group in Europe tried to create two goddesses of death to slay the unrighteous and create a world without suffering. The group fractured over this, and the splinter that was attempting to create these death goddesses was utterly destroyed; the other splinters, however, suffered greatly as well, and they are in decline themselves as the Council of 300, those who rule from the shadows, seize up their assets. A second group in Asia attempted to awaken mankind to his true nature: however, the man in charge deluded himself as to what it was, and he planted the seeds of his own undoing. And last of all,"

He paused for a moment, and stared at Ricardo with a sideways glance, heightening the tension that was already thick around them.

"and last of all, there was the business of what happened with those two young ladies you were with earlier."

Ricardo's surprise brought him to higher levels of alert than before, and he tensed himself for what he knew was coming.

"What? Are you talking about Ellis and Nadie?"

"Precisely. The group in question was none other than the allies and contacts that Douglas Rosenberg kept around him. He, of the two groups already mentioned, came closest to awakening mankind; however, he allowed his own banal urges to get the better of him, and he became so lost in his ambitions and feelings that he no longer knew himself what he was aiming for. If he had been of clearer mind, he would of no doubt succeeded that day, in The Place of Eternity. But now he is dead, and the two girls walk free… funny. All three events I have mentioned tend to, for reasons I cannot begin to comprehend, center around two girls. Oh, well."

Ricardo was growing angry with the man's cryptic speaking, and he was edging closer towards violence.

"Listen, you tell me right now, how the hell do you know all of this?!"

Juan Luis gave several sharp "Has!" into the night.

"When one has transcended the mundane, there is no limit to what you may eventually know. Now, stranger, I give you my message: in the days to come, the world will become aware that there have been secret doings under work for centuries. When they do, panic will inevitably set in, and all the world will go aflame. It is absolutely – now, this is the important part, - absolutely necessary that those two girls embrace their destinies. Otherwise, all will be lost."

He grew silent after this, and he wobbled and begin to fall. Ricardo caught him by his shoulder and stood him upright.

"Now, I am in your possession."

"About damn time. Now, let me put these here cuffs on you, and then we will"

"Oh, I forgot to mention something important."

Ricardo's patience was nearing its end.

"What is it this time?"

"Right now, the three girls you care about more than anything else, especially the one you consider like a daughter, are in mortal peril."

The mention of Lirio and the other girls brought Ricardo to new heights of alarm. He swung Juan Luis around and got in his face.

"What the hell do you mean, they're in mortal peril?! What the hell is going on?!" He lifted Juan Luis into the air over the tracks.

"Why, it's simple: dark forces are hunting them. Not to worry, though: I'm sure that"

"Don't you dare tell me not to worry, you piece of shit! You tell me right now what the hell is goin"

Ricardo never got to finish, as a train came screaming down the tracks and tore Juan Luis away from him. Ricardo could only stare in dumb horror; he then recomposed himself, and started running towards the direction where the hotel would ultimately be.

_Lirio… Nadie… Ellis… LIRIO!_

* * *

Up on the hill in the sea of golden fields, the old man from before stood still, his eyes closed in thought. He heard the sounds of footsteps behind him, and knew who it was before he even opened his eyes.

"So, gramps, how's it going?" spoke Becoyo.

"I do not appreciate the fact that you supplied so many ghastly things to Dido. You know that you are overstepping the boundaries that we set for ourselves when we began this little game."

"Aw, don't give me that crap, gramps! Like you haven't stacked the deck in your favor before."

"Yes, but those times were different! They were times when the world was in grave peril, and if I hadn't done what I had done there'd be chaos now!"

"So? Part of our little agreement is that whatever chaos and shit I cause, I have to fix. And when I fix something, isn't it always like it was before?"

The old man gave a deep sigh.

"How long has it been? 18? 20 years?"

"Somewhere along those lines, yeah."

"So that's how long we've been playing this game of ours…"

He looked out over the sea again, and thought that if he knew then what he knows now, he would never have agreed to the game in the first place. But, even divine spirits have trouble changing the past, and looking back on what has happened since then, he does not fully regret it; he would have however, certainly done things a different way.

* * *

The three girls walked on the streets of the town, nearing the restaurant with every step. They had been walking for about ten minutes, and Nadie reckoned that it was going to be about five more before they got to the place. They walked mostly in silence, but once in a while Lirio would point to something, and Nadie and Ellis would respond in an appropriate manner.

Lirio pointed to a large dog.

"Looks like a French Mastiff." Spoke Nadie.

Lirio pointed inside a shop window at a painting on display. It showed two girls, one taller than the other. Both wore simple white dresses. The shorter one had blonde hair, and the taller one had hair with a lot of red in it. The taller girl was behind the other girl, and her arms were around her. Both had a happy smile on their face.

"Look, Nadie! Don't they look like us?" said Ellis excitedly.

Nadie just gave a smirk and a chuckle. The painting made her feel that feeling again from before.

Lirio pointed to a man accompanying a woman inside a cheap motel. The woman was, for lack of better terms, rather lacking in clothes.

"…when you're older." Explained Nadie.

Little did the girls know that dark shadows followed a short distance behind them. The demons had split into two groups: one small group of five following from the rooftops behind the girls, and the larger group waiting in a large building under construction near the restaurant. At the signal (the large party had a flare gun), the smaller party was to chase the girls towards the building where they would then be ambushed and killed by the larger group.

In the larger group, one of the purple demons turned to another one and spoke.

"You know… what are the odds of this plan working?"

"What?"

"Haven't you noticed how, no matter how well thought-out a plan is, when it concerns these two girls, it ultimately ends in failure?"

"What are you talking about?"

"It's just, well makes you wonder, doesn't? As if there was some unseen force at work keeping the girls safe?

"…you've been reading Discworld again, haven't you?"

"What?"

"Yeah. Like how the character Rincewind always manages to survive whatever is thrown at him because he's the gods' plaything, you're thinking that some divine or spiritual force is at work keeping these girls safe."

"No, no! I'm not thinking that at all!"

"Then what are you thinking about?"

"Well… you were right in that I was thinking along the lines of Discworld. But what I'm actually thinking about is the Theory of Narrative Causality."

"...come again?"

"Well, to describe it in detail would take too long, but the gist of it is that things happen because the plot says that they will happen."

"Oh, so you think that the whole world is a book, right, or a movie, or a play, or whatever."

"No, not exactly… it's just that… damn, I forgot what I was going to say…"

"Are you done now? Now shut up. We have to be ready for the signal, or else we will screw up."

"Okay…"

Little did the demon know just how right he was, and just how much pain and trouble he and a lot of his colleagues were about to go through because events were about to transpire through a series of coincidences so contrived, even Dickens would have been hesitant to write them.

VVVVVSmall NoteVVVVV

Man, this chapter was a little bit more serious than how I wanted it to turn out. But whatev. Next chapter will just have to be funnier to make up for it. Once again, thanks for sticking in this far in, and I hope that you guys and others will continue on until this story eventually reaches a conclusion (I have no intent of leaving an orphaned series).

Also, much thanks to SapphoSensei for the advice about inserting lines. When I feel up to it, I'll edit the other chapters as well. Probably within 24 hours of this posting.

Cheers.


	5. Pricy Food and Dark Shadows

As we mentioned before the (admittedly outrageously-long) break, our heroines were going out to dinner, unknowingly being followed by the small squad of demons. Also unbeknownst to the girls, events were about to unfurl that would put all of them in the path of danger, and that Ricardo was tearing through the streets trying to warn them. As it goes, however, they were not aware of any of this, and as far as they were concerned, all they were in for this evening was a good meal and good time with each other.

The girls sat at the restaurant, sitting down to enjoy their dinner. As they sat, they were completely unaware that they were being watched. Across the room from them, sitting alone at a table, sat a man with a newspaper. As it is known, those who are spying on people think that hiding themselves with a newspaper and occasionally peeking over the top is a great tactic for trying to be inconspicuous. In reality, it just makes them stick out like a sore thumb. However, since the girls did not think that they were being followed, they paid no heed to the blaringly-obvious spy across the room from them. It can be said, then, that the more conspicuous you are, the less people will notice you; this is the primary logic that people employ when trying to get into off-limit areas, such as clubs, in that as long as they act confident and look like they have a reason for being there, others will assume that they are supposed to be there.

Anyway, to get back to the spying man, he was just sitting there, a cup of coffee on the table. He was wearing a Hawaiian-pattern shirt, and wore a pair of dark-green-tinted sunglasses that made him feel incredibly dated. He observed the girls for a minute or so, and then he put down the newspaper, left money on the table, and went outside the restaurant. He flipped out a cell-phone and dialed a number.

Somewhere else, a man wearing a sombrero curiously taped together in the middle, as if it had been cut in half and repaired, picked up the phone as he was eating tacos from a convenient Amigo Tacos that seemed to be in every single town in Latin America.

"Sombo?" the voice on the phone asked.

"Yeah, H-S?" the man called Sombo responded.

"They are currently getting ready to eat. Proceed with the plan?"

"Yes. Permission is granted to initiate."

"Roger. Also, Sombo…"

"Hm?"

"On the way in, I spotted some unwanted guests in the distance."

"Assassins?"

"Of a sort."

"Deal with them. The girls cannot be allowed to be harmed until the Captain has been able to meet with them."

"Got it."

The man called H-S made his way back to the door and leaned against the wall next to it. He dialed a new number on his cell phone.

"Lazaro, we got some bogeys to take care of. At least five of them. Freaky-looking fellows with tentacle-heads. Get some men on it."

"Roger."

* * *

If Dido had been observing any of this, she would have been furious. However, she was far too busy getting things ready for raising the dead. Kennedy stood by away from the large tank, observing Dido as she was finishing her preparations. Several demons stood by at the ready, armed with machine guns.

"Um, Dido?"

"Yes, dear sister?"

"Why are there several demons here stationed with machine guns?"

"Well, that's actually a good question, glad you asked! You see, the person we're resurrecting is… special, to say the least."

"Special as in how?"

"Weeeell, let's just say that this individual was in life gifted with extraordinary prowess in speed and agility. He was a bit nuts, too. A young fool driven insane by love."

Kennedy waited several minutes for this to sink in.

"Dido."

"Yes?"

"Don't tell me that you plan on resurrect-"

Just then, several demons came in, with a slightly taller, red-headed one coming in after them.

"Lady Dido!" it spoke loud but evenly.

"Yes, Commander Red?"

"There have been some unforeseen circumstances. To say the least, the current operation is in jeopardy."

"…by what is it do you mean?"

"It means that we're in deep."

Dido and Kennedy stood motionless.

"By deep, how do you mean?"

"By deep, I mean that there are several squadrons of infantry heading our way right now through the forest."

There was a complete loss for words.

* * *

Returning to our girls, they had just got done ordering their meals.

"Geez, for such a small place, you'd think the food would be less expensive." snarked Nadie.

"Hmm… maybe they're charging for service?" suggested Ellis.

"Maybe…"

In addition to the poorly-disguised spy already mentioned, there was also another man staring at the girls, albeit for very different reasons. A young man, with the appearance of a well-meaning but hopeless loser, named Luis Armando. Luis, about three years earlier, had been held hostage by some petty gang in Baja. Fortunately for him, the gang-leader was wanted, and in came bursting Nadie, creaming several punks in the face (and other, lower places) and handcuffing the leader. Since then, he had not forgotten about her, and always wanted to repay her for what she did, but being a bounty hunter, she was not exactly easy to find.

Now that she was sitting there, no more twenty feet away, he was thinking to himself "Luis, man, here she is, after all this time! Here's your chance!" However, he wanted to wait a while longer, neither feeling the courage to speak to her directly, nor confident in his ability to keep himself form not looking like a total creep while doing so.

So he sat there as the girls ate their food. Meanwhile, across the room from him, sat a woman named Sonia Villas Manjarrez. She sat staring at Luis. Ever since Luis had arrived in town some three months back, she had wanted to speak to him. She found him rather cute (she had a thing for well-meaning yet hopeless men) and wanted to ask him out, but she was too nervous to. So now, as she sat there staring at Luis staring at Nadie, the jealousy began to rise within her.

"What's so special about her?" she muttered to herself. "She's too tall, her hair's atrocious, and her boobs aren't that great. What's the big deal?"

As Sonia sat sulking there, an older man from yet another corner of the restaurant, one Jorge Zavala, sat staring at all three parties. Like Luis, he too had Nadie as an unintentional savior, back two years earlier when he was walking down the streets of Mexico City. A street gang tried to mug him, but in came Nadie, gun pointing, saying the words that stuck with him ever since: "If you have any last words, say 'em."

Sonia he knew from when she was young, and he remembered how she comforted him after his wife had died. Luis he met while travelling the road about six months back, and he had helped him out with his car. Now that all three of them were here in one place, Jorge thought to himself that now he had the perfect opportunity to repay all three of them… right after finishing dinner, of course. It is rude, after all, to interrupt someone eating.

Now, we have this strange circumstance with the spy watching Nadie, Ellis, and Lirio, Luis watching Nadie, Sonia watching Luis, and Jorge watching Nadie, Luis, and Sonia. Lirio, being the youngest, was first to notice this peculiarity, but said nothing of the matter besides starring back at them, particularly Luis, who was most visible. After a moment of this, the food arrived, and Lirio completely forgot about Luis and instead focused on eating her meal.

* * *

Alarms rang all throughout Dido's compound. Everywhere demons were scattering with whatever gun they could grab a hold of. Several went outside to face the intruders, but were quickly shot to bits. The demons, being poorly trained and quite frankly not too bright, were little resistance, and the intruders quickly overran the defenses and dashed inside.

Meanwhile, Dido and Kennedy were sneaking around the halls, trying not to get noticed.

"How the hell did this happen? Becoyo said that absolutely nobody would know of this place!" spoke Dido.

"Well, why don't you ask him who the flying hell these guys are?!"

Kennedy felt a presence behind her. She turned, only to be butted in the face by the hilt of a gun. Dido turned also and quickly followed suit.

* * *

The two witches were dragged away by the intruders and thrown into the back of a large truck. In addition, the tank was hauled away as well, and placed in a separate truck. The trucks loaded up with their contents, they drove on down the road, to God knows where.

Meanwhile, at the Amigo Tacos where the Sombrero-Man had been eating, the cashier went into the backroom and picked up the phone. She punched in a secret number and it rang.

At the other ends, a certain blue-eyed woman picked up the phone.

"Ms. Hayward, I just overheard something fishy."

"What is it, Number 85?" asked Jodie from her desk in the Amigo Tacos office building in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

"There was this man eating here who just now called someone. He was wearing a sombrero that looked like it had been cut in half at some point."

"Do you think he's the man we've been looking for?"

"Not sure. Sending photos right now."

"Good. Also, what did he say on the phone?"

"He talked to someone he called 'H-S', and mentioned something about 'the girls' not being allowed to be harmed until the 'Captain' had been allowed to meet them."

"Hrm. If this is the man we think it is, it could be a much worse situation than we thought."

The photos arrived in Jodie's e-mail. Clicking them open, she took a good look at the man in them. She gave a sigh. "Okay. Send some agents in now to handle it. Hopefully we can get to them before they do."

"Roger. Number 85 out."

Jodie put down the phone and stared at the screen again, her face resting in her hand.

"Can't trouble just leave those two girls alone already?"

Since the events of the previous year, Jodie has gone up very highly in Amigo Tacos, and now controls over half of the franchise's locations. However, using contacts from her C.I.A. days and from her allies in the Witches' Council, she has also made it a secret intelligence network, dedicated to searching-out groups that may threaten the safety of the world. She had limited resources, but whatever she could put towards the effort, she did.

This one group in particular she had been watching called themselves the very peculiar name of "The Eye of Saruon". When she looked up the name "Saruon", she mostly got false-leads to The Lord of the Rings series and Sauron, but she found several online articles, relating that Saruon was an ancient mystic from Central Asia, whom according to legends from the small nation of Gazth-Sonika existed before even the rise of Egypt and Sumer. Saruon left behind an odd script known as Elies Script, and his teachings by the 8th century A.D. had been collected in three volumes: Firstari, Secondari, and Thirstari. Beyond that, she could not find anything.

The group itself, however, she did know some more about: it was small, and most of its members were mercenaries. The man in the photographs had previously worked for Rosenberg, his codename being "Sombo" after his hat. Since he was a rather incautious individual, he was easy to track over time, and through him Jodie had learned several things: that The Eye of Saruon strives to capture Ellis, and that they are made up of the remnants of a group that fell apart in 2011, Enfant. The Eye of Saruon's leader is referred to as "The Captain" but beyond that not much else is known.

Having finished mentally reviewing the facts, Jodie set about getting things ready for the operation.

Steve Beckman, her assistant (who also bore an uncanny resemblance to Rosenberg) looked in from the door.

"Ms. Hayward, the Execs from Caracas will be here in about twenty."

"Ah, right. Thanks, Steve."

Steve closed the door, and as he did, Jodie picked up the phone again.

"This is Hayward…"

* * *

The girls had finished eating by this point, and were getting up to leave. Luis, summoning all of his courage, got up to introduce himself.

"Uh, um, hi."

"Oh, hello there. Who are you?" asked Ellis.

"Well, um, I'm…" Luis took a look at Lirio. He thought to himself "Oh, crap, is she her sister? Maybe even her daughter? Oh, what to do…"

After a moment of standing there awkwardly, Nadie spoke up.

"Well, if you're trying to ask Ellis out, I'm afraid it will have to be a no"

"G-g-good heavens, no! I-I, I mean, sure, she's cute, but that's not why I came over here.

"Oh? Then what is it?"

"Well, um, maybe, er, um…"

At this point, Lirio lifted up her boomerang that she brought with her.

"Ah!"

They all looked down at her.

"I think she wants to show us how she uses it." Spoke Ellis.

"Ah, well, er, sure! Let's all go outside now. You want to show me how to use it, little girl?"

"Eh-heh!"

The girls plus Luis then exited the restaurant. Behind them, Sonia got up to follow from a distance. Jorge, fearing he may lose them if he stayed, got up as well, leaving some money on the table to pay for his meal.

H-S got up, looked around, and then exited through the backdoor.

* * *

Greetings! And many apologies for such a very, very late update! I practically wrote myself into a wall, and it took much longer to figure it out between everything else in my schedule. A day ago I figured out a way to continue the story, so I decided to write again. I feel incredibly guilty for making you guys wait, and I'm afraid this chapter may be a little cluttered. As you can see, I'm trying to connect El Cazador with the other shows in the "Girls with Guns" trilogy, in particular, Madlax. Though it is not going to be a full-blown crossover quite yet, I at least want to establish that El Cazador, Madlax, and Noir all take place in the same universe.

Yet again, to those who want to continue reading this, thank you, and hopefully I'll be quicker to update this time!


	6. In Guatemala

Dido and Kennedy woke up in a cell of some sort. After getting a hold of where they were, they both sat up and puzzled on where they were, why they were there, and the heck they were going to get out of this mess.

"Where are we? Why are we here? How the heck are we going to get out of this mess?" asked Dido.

Kennedy made no effort to respond, however, due to the fact that she was 1) angry that she was currently in a cell in who the heck knows where and 2) that Dido's incautious dealings were probably the reason why they were in this mess.

After sitting there and festering for a while, a man in uniform walked by. Dido wasted absolutely no time at all in scrambling over to the hate of the cell and repeating her earlier questions verbatim.

"Where are we? Why are we here?!" she called to the passing man, who promptly ignored her. "Hey, I'm speaking, dammit! Listen to me! Obey, you worm!"

Once the man had gone out of sight, Dido allowed herself to fall back onto the floor. To Kennedy's surprise, she began sobbing a little.

"Hey…" Kennedy spoke. Dido continued sobbing.

"Hey, Dido?

"This is all my fault… I didn't want it to end this way!" she wailed out.

"Hey, Dido…"

"I'm so sorry, Kennedy! I'm so sorry you have to go and die on account of me!"

"Hey… who said anything about dying? Look, we don't know why we're even here. And if they really wanted to kill us, wouldn't they have shot us back out the compound?"

Kennedy put a hand on Dido's shoulder.

"Look, we'll make it through this, alright?"

Dido sniffled and stood up.

"That's right!" she said as she recomposed herself. "We are witches, dear sister! There is absolutely nothing that can get in our way! These fools will rue the day that they dared to mess with us!"

Kennedy smiled. For all of her insanity and selfishness, there was something about Dido that made you want to go along with whatever it was that she was doing, even if it was, for intents and reasons, absolutely insane.

Suddenly, the guy who passed earlier came back with two other equally unpleasant-looking fellows and opened up the cell door.

"Alright, ladies, time to get going. The Captain wishes to see you."

"Hold it right there! Who do you think you are, ordering us around, telling us to-"

The man lifted his rifle and pointed it at Dido.

"I'm the guy with the nice, big gun, that's who I am. Now, any more questions?"

Dido made an audible gulping noise and simply lifted her hands in the air, with Kennedy following suit.

So, being led out at gun-point, Dido and Kennedy left the cell and were led down the halls to meet "The Captain."

* * *

Meanwhile, some distance west of here, Ricardo had made it back to the hotel. He went up to the room that Naide and Ellis would have been in, and lacking a key, forced the lock. He barged into the room, only to be met by emptiness.

"Damn it! Where the hell did they go?"

He ran out of the room, passing a cleaning-lady on the way.

"Señor!" she called out.

Ricardo turned to look at her.

"If you are looking for the two young women and the girl, I believe I saw them going out to eat later. I think they headed to a restaurant about ten or so minutes from here."

"Which way?"

"I believe it's south."

Ricardo resumed running.

"Gracias!" he shouted back.

"My, what strange people we get sometimes." She mentioned to another cleaner who had stuck his head out of a room to observe.

"Yeah, you telling me, Amiga. First, you had that guy with the horrible sunglasses and the Hawaiian shirt, and now this!"

Shrugging off the weirdness as just typical everyday oddity, they resumed their duties, completely unaware of the gravity of the situation.

* * *

The girls plus Luis were now standing a small distance away from the front of the restaurant. Sonia stood some distance away, watching anxiously, and Jorge easily passed himself off as just as someone who was walking on by and decided to stop to see what was going on.

Lirio demonstrated first how Ricardo taught her to hold the boomerang, and then demonstrated the proper angles to throw it at.

"Wow, you're quite a smart girl!" spoke Luis.

"Go on, Lirio! Show us how you use it!" encouraged Nadie. Tossing her arm several times in preparation, Lirio at last let loose of it, and the boomerang went flying.

The boomerang, in its flight, brushed up against a bucket that was one a nearby girder. This bucket fell and hit a board leaning up on a barrel (for what reasons only the gods knew), which flung a brick that almost hit a passing man, who dropped the soda bottle he was holding. The noise of the bottle shattering startled a flock of pigeons, which promptly flew off in the direction of the large squad of demons. One of the pigeons, who just happened to have finished eating not too long ago, took a large drop on one of the demons.

"Oh, this is just great. Hang on, guys, I'll be right back."

The demon then proceeded to try and find something to clean himself off with. In the darkness, he tripped over a sandbag, in the process knocking over an oil barrel. The oil poured out to underneath a stack of other oil barrels.

"Um, hey, do you think that we should be concerned about that?" asked one of the demons.

"Why? It's not like something's going to light it up."

In the distance, the smaller party of demons was closing in on our heroines. However, they were soon stopped dead in their tracks by a group of really unpleasant-looking fellows with machine guns pointing at them.

"Oh." Said one of them.

The men proceeded to open fire on the demons, tearing several to shreds with the rain of bullets. The one holding the flare fired it off in distress. The other party of demons saw this and moved in for what they assumed would be the kill. A passing vagrant with a cigarette, surprised at the scene of the demons before him, dropped his cigarette. Some of the oil had poured to where he was, and quickly spread to the larger pool underneath the barrels. One of the demons had just long enough to turn around and go "Oh, shit" before a massive explosion happened behind them.

* * *

Meanwhile, in Guatemala, are two witches were brought into what looked like a garage. In the garage was the tank of flesh from back at the compound.

"Well, it seems that things have gotten a little bit bad-"

"Very bad, Dido. Things have just gotten very bad."

Standing next to the tank was a severe looking guy in military dress wearing a white beret.

"Who are you? What do you want form us? Why the bloody hell do you have my tank!?"

"You will stop your speaking now, witch." Spoke the man.

"And what if I do-"

"Then I'll kill your friend over here."

A grunt lifted a gun and pointed it at Kennedy.

"…fine. Are you the 'Captain'?"

"No, I am not The Captain, but his right-hand. My name is of no importance to you. I am here to relay orders from The Captain to you two."

"And these orders are?"

"You are to carry on your ritual and resurrect this being for our usage."

At this Kennedy spoke out.

"Are you out of your mind? Do you know just who this person is? I mean, I'm not too sure myself, but if it is what I think it is, resurrecting it would be a very, very bad idea!"

"Silence! The Captain has declared his resurrection to be essential to our plans. Now, if you would just co-"

"Don't you get it? This being, if it is what I think it is, will have absolutely no loyalty to you at all! It'll just run off and pursue its own goals!"

"It does not matter what you think, witch. All that does matter is what The Captain desires. And what The Captain desires is that you resurrect this being. Those are your orders; everything that you will need has been provided. He expects to see results within the next twenty-four hours. I advise you get to it."

The man then ordered most of the grunts out of the room with him, leaving just three to watch the witches as they worked.

Dido and Kennedy just stood there, not completely sure what to do next.

"Well…" started Dido, "if we perform the resurrection, there is a possibility of us dying. However, if we don't perform the resurrection, we are sure to die. What do you think we should do, dear sister?"

Kennedy stood there for a moment and sighed.

"Well, I guess we have no other choice…"

* * *

Meanwhile, our protagonists could not help but notice that a giant explosion had just happened right behind the restaurant. Of course, this attracted the attention of everyone within hearing distance, and people came pouring outside to see what was going on.

"W-what the hell was that!?" Nadie stuttered out.

Now, it was at this moment that Lirio, for all of her sense, made a run in the direction of the explosion. The reason she did this was because she wanted to recover her boomerang; being a gift from Ricardo, it meant something dear to her. Thus, completely ignoring common sense, she ran in the direction she saw it fly to.

"Hey, Lirio, come back!" Ellis called out as she began going after her.

"Eliis! Lirio! Wait!" Nadie called out, chasing after both of them.

Luis was about to call out to Nadie as well, but he noticed a figure moving in the smoke: one of the demons had survived, and was focusing its entire malign gaze on the girls currently running.

"What the… heck is that…?" Luis said to himself.

He saw the demon lift its gun.

"Well, Luis, if you're ever going to repay her back, now would be the time." He thought to himself. Giving out a cry, he lunged his full weight (which was not much) into the demon. The demon, now distracted by Luis, quickly aimed its gun towards him, only for a stunner to come out of nowhere, implant itself into the demon, and shock it.

Luis turned around to see Sonia, stun-gun in hand.

"You know, that was an incredibly stupid thing you just did." She said.

"Well, I, um… oh, who am I kidding?" He looked out in the direction that the girls had run to. "Well, at least I got to pay her back. Good luck, Nadie."

"Wait, repay?" spoke Sonia. "You were repaying a favor?"

"Yeah, actually, funny story. I was up in Baja several years back, and this girl, Nadie, came bursting in and saved me from some thugs who had me captive. Of course, she was after the boss for the price on his head, but she still saved me. I don't know where I would be right now if it wasn't for her."

"Oh." Was all Sonia said in reply. "Great, Sonia, you were badmouthing a heroine. Don't you feel special now?" she thought to herself.

Just then, unbeknownst to her, another demon that had survived the explosion was creeping up behind her, shovel in hand.

"Look out!" cried Luis.

Just as Sonia turned, a sledgehammer came crashing down onto the demon, and it dropped. Jorge dropped the sledgehammer, panting from the effort.

"You kids alright?"

"We should be asking the same to you, old man." responded Sonia.

"Well, they're gone now." Jorge said, looking in the direction the girls were heading in.

"By the way, my name's Luis" spoke Luis to Sonia, offering his hand. "What's yours?"

"Ah. Well, um, I'm…" Sonia gulped and mustered up her courage. "My name is Sonia. Sonia Villas Manjarrez. Yours?"

"My name is Luis, Luis Armando. " He shook Sonia's hand.

"Well, while we're in the habit of introductions, my name is Jorge Zavala."

* * *

Nadie made her way through the site, looking for any sign of Ellis or Lirio.

"Ellis! Lirio!" she called out. "Damn, they're fast."

Nadie saw two pairs of footprints leading up into a building that was unoccupied.

"Well, those are probably them. Might as well check inside."

Just then, panting as he approached, Ricardo entered the site.

"Ricardo! What are you doing here?"

"Doesn't matter. Where's Lirio? Where's Ellis?"

"That's what I'm trying to figure out. Lirio went chasing after her boomerang, and Ellis went to follow her. I think that they may be in here."

"Well, there's no point in just standing here. Let's find them."

Nadie entered, Ricardo following.

"Ellis. Lirio. You here?" Nadie called lightly.

"I don't like the feeling of this place."

"Neither do I."

"To me, it seems as if we're heading into a trap…"

Nadie then stepped on something and felt it go down under her foot. Before she could ponder what it was, a large boxing bag deployed from the wall and knocked her into the opposite wall, which opened up to let her in through a secret slide leading down.

"Nadie!"

Ricardo tried to follow, but a bag from down the wall came rushing down towards him and knocked him off his feet.

Nadie slid down a long tunnel, until she ended up in a small padded room. She heard an eek when she came in, and even though there was no light in the room, she could tell who made the eek.

"Lirio, is that you?"

"Yes, it is. I'm here too, Nadie."

"Ellis! Thank goodness you're both safe. Um…"

Nadie looked around in the dark, as if it would change how dark it was.

"…any idea as to where we are?"

The ceiling was not very high, probably four feet at best. Nadie had to stay on her hands and knees. She felt round for a bit until she found Ellis and Lirio, and they all huddled together.

"Do you think someone did this all on purpose, Nadie?" asked Ellis.

Nadie put her arm around Ellis, pulling her closer.

"I'm not sure. Let's just stick together and hopefully we'll get out of this alright." She put another arm around Lirio and held her close as well. Just then, the rom began shaking, and Nadie could feel the room moving.

"We're moving." Stated Ellis

"I'm going to hazard a guess that we're on a vehicle of some sort."

"A vehicle? Where do you think it's going?"

Nadie pulled the two of them a little bit closer to herself.

"I don't know…"

* * *

Ricardo rushed out of the building, to see on the road below a large truck moving away with a large storage container attached.

"Crap…"

He ran after it for a while, trying to remember the numbers on the license plate. After it had escaped his reach, he ran to a payphone.

On the other end of the phone, Jodie picked up.

"This is Hayward… "

"Hayward, it's Ricardo."

"Ricardo? What's wro-"

"Look, some crazy shit's been going down. I think the girls have been kidnapped."

"The girls? You don't mean…"

"I do. And worse, Lirio…"

"Oh my God. Ricardo…"

"You have any agents nearby?"

"Yes. What should I-"

"This is the truck's license plate number." Ricardo relayed the number to Jodie. "It's rather large. If you can, have someone follow it. I'm going to try and find a way to catch up to it as well."

"Alright. Be careful."

Ricardo hung up and went searching for a vehicle he could commandeer.

* * *

The girls eventually fell asleep save for Nadie. Nadie took a watch out of her pocket to try and keep track of the time. When the truck finally came to a stop, about five hours had passed. It picked up again, for another four hours.

"Damn, I'm getting hungry…"

After stopping again, the truck went on for another three hours. By this time, the other two had woken up.

"Nadie, where do you think they're taking us?"

"I'm not sure. Probably somewhere not good."

Suddenly, Ellis got an idea.

"What if I…"

"No. If you try and light it on fire, you might burn us up. And I don't know if we're inside something or not, so freezing it may just do the same to us as well."

"Oh…"

Ellis slumped herself against Nadie.

"I'm hungry."

All Nadie could do was just helplessly sit there and do her best to comfort the two.

Eventually, they came to a stop. She heard the sound of some large doors opening, and then part of the top of whatever they were in opened up.

"Time to get out." Said an unpleasant looking man.

"Who the hell are you?" said Nadie as she raised her gun.

"None of your business. Also…" the sound of several guns clicking came from around. "…hostility is unadvised at this current point in time."

Grunting, Nadie put her gun back in its holster.

"Whatever you do, you better not harm Ellis or Lirio."

"Do not worry. We have been instructed to do no harm unless you attack any of us first."

"Ordered? By who? Just what the hell is goi-"

"Just shut up and get out."

Nadie slowly got up and stepped outside, seeing that the three of them had been in a container of some sort. She also noticed several air tanks affixed to it, thus solving the mystery of how they were able to breath in a closed up space.

Once all three were out, they were each both grabbed by their arms and led out the back of the truck. By their surroundings, Nadie deduced that they were in a jungle somewhere.

"Where are you taking us?"

"Look."

Nadie looked forward and saw a several-story tall building. By its design, she judged that it used to be an outpost of some sort.

They entered the building, and Nadie and Lirio were led off down a different hall then Ellis.

"Just wait right there! Where do you think you're going with Ellis? Ellis!"

"Nadie!" Ellis called back.

Both girls were struggling to run towards the other but were being restrained.

"Ellis! Ellis! Don't worry, I'll get you! And if any of these bastards harmed you in anyway, they're dead! Ellis!"

"Nadie!" Ellis was led around a corner and was lost from sight.

Nadie and Lirio then found themselves thrusted into a room and the door locked behind them. Nadie ran up to the door and began banging on it.

"Let me out, you bastards! I swear, if you plan on doing anything to Ellis, I'm going to make you gag on your own testicles! You hear me! Hey!"

Nadie slumped against the door, tears beginning to form in her eyes.

"God damn it… why is this happening…. Ellis…"

Just then, Lirio, who had curiously been calm this entire time, tugged on Nadie's poncho.

"Lirio…?"

Lirio was pointing towards the window. Nadie needed a moment to sustain her shock. The goons had thrown them into a room with an open window. Nadie had to keep herself form bursting into laughter.

"Good job, Lirio!" Lirio giggled happily at this.

"Hey…" Nadie said, turning towards, Lirio, "want to bust out of here, kick some butts, and save the day?"

"Yeah!" said Lirio, the fact that she made a sort-of word accentuating her eagerness.

"Well, then let's get to it!"

* * *

Author's Note: Okay, this turned out much more serious than I wanted it to be, but at least the story is progressing! Will Nadie and Lirio save the day? Where was Ellis being led to? Was Ricardo able to trail them? And just who is this Captain, and why does he want Ellis, and furthermore, why does he want the Witches to resurrect a certain individual? These questions and others will be answered in the next installment! Stay tuned!


	7. The Eye of Saruon

Ellis was led down the halls and up a flight of stairs. Eventually, she was brought before a door. One of the men opened the door and guided her inside. Once inside, they closed the door, and took up positions at the corners of the room.

In the room was a desk and a large swivel chair with a high back, turned away from the door so that one would not be able to see if anyone was in the chair or not. On the desk sat a large, grey bird on a perch. This bird had a long, thick beak with a slight orange protuberance at the top – a Hornbill.

"I see that you have arrived." came a voice.

"Are you 'The Captain'?" asked Ellis.

"Why, yes, I am. And may I say that it is an honor to mee-"

"You're a bird?"

This response elicited a short pause.

"No, I am not a bird. Here, let us meet face to face…"

* * *

Elsewhere, Nadie and Lirio looked out of the window of the room they had been thrown into. They noticed that, though they were on the first floor, the ground below the window sloped down to about an additional twelve meters.

"Well, we could jump, but it would hurt quite a bit…"

Lirio pointed towards a building seen a small distance away. It has several guards outside of it.

"I see. We can't really jump out without being noticed either."

Lirio raised her hand to get Nadie's attention, and dug through her clothes. She drew out her boomerang.

"Huh? Since when did… it doesn't matter. Good work, Lirio!"

Nadie looked at the boomerang, and then looked again at the guards. Two of them seemed to be set on walking around the building, with one permanent guard by the building's door. By doing some quick calculations, she judged that if the boomerang was thrown at the permanent guard, it would give them a few seconds to jump down form the window.

"It'll be risky, but it's worth a shot… hey, Lirio? Do you think you can throw your boomerang at that bad guy over there by the door!"

"Uh-huh!"

"Good! Then, at my signal, could you throw it?"

"Un!"

"Great! Now after you do that, I'm going to grab onto you, and then I'm going to jump out of the window. When we hit the ground, we're going to roll down the slope and into those bushes right there. Okay?"

"Gah-tchuh!"

Nadie had to restrain herself from squeeing.

"Okay, ready? One… two… three!"

Lirio threw the boomerang and, as luck would have it, hit the guard square in the face, sending him to the floor for a moment.

"Now!" Nadie scooped Lirio up in her arms and jumped out of the window. Landing on her side, they both rolled down the slope and quickly clambered into the bushes. Peeking form the brush, Nadie saw both of the rotating guards come running to the fornt of the building to investigate what had happened.

"Fortunately, these people aren't so good at shaking down people for weapons." Nadie spoke, procuring her gun from her shirt. She had placed it there before being taken from the truck, as a precaution just in case the goons had tried to make her give up her weapons.

"Now, we got to get to the other side of this building. Ellis is still in there. Follow my lead."

"Hm!" spoke Lirio in a worried tone.

"What is it?"

"Nadie then remembered that the boomerang had not returned all the way, and was halfway between them and the guards.

"We'll get it later, okay?"

"Nnnnn!"

"Look, Lirio, we can't risk getting caught right now, or-"

Suddenly, the door behind the permanent guard burst open, and saw two cloaked figures escaping. The guard went to try and shoot them, but another guard poked his head out and beckoned him and the other guards to come in.

"Well, alright." Nadie quickly ran out to get the boomerang, all the while making sure no one was watching, and then, reuniting with Lirio, proceeded to work their way to the front of the building.

* * *

While this was all going on, the witches were getting ready to recite the spell.

"Ugh, I hate speaking this tongue." Grunted Kennedy in disgust as she was reading over the spell. The language the spell was in was a dark, ancient, and evil one, and was used for most of the incantations found within the infamous Necronomicon.

"Well, there's no use complaining now; we were going to do it anyway." Replied Dido.

Dido turned around to look at the guards: though several of them were still keenly observing them, one had drifted off to sleep while leaning against the wall. Regardless, Dido whispered into Kennedy's ear.

"Just so you know, there's more material here than necessary for the resurrection. So in the process of resurrecting this individual, another being will rise with it."

"What, are you serious?"

"Yeah. It's our best hope of getting out of this mess, too, so-"

"Hey, no whispering!" shouted one of the guards.

The mixture finally ready, Dido took an amphora sitting aside raised it over the mixture of flesh, fat, blood, and bone.

"Oh, great one! By the powers of Yog-Sothoth, the Gate and the Key, may this being come back to life!" Dido spoke as she poured the contents of the amphora, ashes, into the mixture. Taking Kennedy's hand in hers, they chanted the spell:

_Y'AI 'NG'NGAH_

_YOG-SOTHOTH_

_H'EE-L'GEB_

_F'AI THRODOG_

_UAAAH!_

A cold wind blew from nowhere, and an acrid, pungent odor began to fill the room. Dark-green smoke began to emit from the mixture, and a figure began to form from it. The guards, being mesmerized by this, did not notice Dido throwing in one of her hairs. She quickly plucked a hair from Kennedy's head as well, and threw it in also. She then whispered a chant into the mixture, and then took Kennedy by the arm and bolted for the door.

The guards turned to try and stop them, but one of them suddenly was struck down by what looked like a large, fleshy tongue. Just before Dido threw open the door, she turned and threw what looked like a steel bracelet with a tab on it towards the figure forming from the mixture, after which she bolted through with Kennedy and ran for their lives.

The figure forming from the mixture had assumed the shape of a humanoid, and was in the process of forming skin around itself. Meanwhile, a large lump of flesh and bone emerged from the tank as well, and, head forming into large jaws, made for the nearest guard.

The figure had finished forming by this point, and covered with blood, stood there. It stood there motionless for a moment, and then quickly, opened wide its eyes. They were golden. The figure bent down to pick up the bracelet. Then…

* * *

The chair turned around to reveal a man who appeared to be at least in his late forties. He had greying brown hair that came down to his neck, and along with his military beret, he also wore an odd pair of sunglasses that were grey-rimmed with a design on the bridge that resembled an eye.

"My full title is Captain Gyrfalcon, but for now you may simply refer to me as 'The Captain'. I am not going to bore you with the details, but I shall give you a short summation of who I am and what I wish to accomplish with you. Now, to beg-"

"Where's Nadie and Lirio?" Ellis asked sternly.

"My dear girl, your friends have simply been put away for a little bit. They are simply in a locked room. No harm will come to them, for you see, I have plans for them as well, especially that fiery companion of yours."

"What do you want to do with Nadie?"

Captain Gyrfalcon stood up from his chair and walked over to the window.

"My dear child, there are some things that you must know about your friend. However, let me tell my story first: you see, long ago, I used to be part of an enforcement group in the service of a powerful organization that rules from the shadows. I shall not tell you their name, for all who here it will eventually come to be involved with it somehow, and I do not wish to see you in such a situation. Anyway, in this organization I met my mentor, a man that shall be only known by his chosen name: Friday Monday. When he chose to defect from this organization, I went along with him, and helped him to found his own group, which he called Enfant."

"Friday Monday had a great goal: to seek a way to reawaken mankind to its true calling and instinct, to return it to its natural state. Now, this is where he and I disagreed: you see, he believed that the true nature of mankind was one of violence and bloodshed, and wished to plunge the whole world into a state of chaos, disorder, and war, from which a superior specimen of mankind may rise from the strife and truly recognize humanity's potential. I, on the other hand, differed in his interpretations of mankind's true nature, and I formed my own theory: that humanity has great power locked away within itself… powers like those of the witches."

"And that is where I am supposed to come in?" asked Ellis.

"Naturally!" stated Gyrfalcon as he turned to face her. "My dear young girl, what I wish to offer you is the opportunity of a lifetime: to awaken mankind's true potential, to make it at last master of its own fate! The details can be gone over later, but in the meantime, I'll just let you process what I have already said."

Ellis stood there for a moment.

"I'm sorry, but I have to refuse."

Gyrfalcon, not taken aback at all, simply shook his head and chuckled.

"My dear child! You do not know what you refuse! What I am offering you is not just the chance to remake the world, but the chance to remake your life – think of it! Why is it that you endlessly travel, anyway?"

"I travel… because I want to be with Nadie."

"I see… but is that really the case? Weren't you and Nadie just settling down fine a while back? For several months you lived with that nice couple down south. But then again, were you really happy with that?"

"I… I don't know what you're trying to say…"

"What I'm getting at, dear child, is that you cannot just simply rest! You must always wonder, as that is all that you know! Whereas Nadie once had a home, a family, a community; you never had any of that. Nadie was doing just fine abandoning her old lifestyle; you, on the other hand, know no other way of living!"

"That's a lie. I-"

"You lived with the Professor for a while. He raised you for a bit as you grew older. True, he was like a parent to you; true, his home was like yours; however, it was never truly a family, never truly a home. At the end of the day, you were just simply an experiment, even if Professor Schneider eventually developed feelings of caring for you. And this Nadie; how does she benefit from your existence?"

"I…"

"Think of it: you're only with Nadie because you have no idea what else to do!"

"That's not true at all. I'm with Nadie because-"

"Because what? Because you love her?"

"…how did-"

"I know _everything, _my child! And I also know that, though you love her, you are nervous, afraid to act out on it, because you are not certain whether or not she would reciprocate such feelings! In truth, you are only with her to give meaning to an existence that you cannot find meaning in, an emotional crutch!"

"Tha… that's not true at all." Ellis was nearing tears at this point, but still kept a fairly even tone. She knew that Gyrfalcon was trying to toy with her mind, but she couldn't help but to admit to herself that there was truth in what he was saying. In reality, she was afraid, deathly afraid that Nadie would not reciprocate her feelings. For what she had for Nadie was not the love of friendship, but something more; she just could not put her fingers on it, though.

"Well, it seems that I have rendered you speechless. I will let you leave for a while to consider your answer-"

"I already have an answer." Declared Ellis while looking down at the floor.

"Oh? And what is that?"

"My answer…" Ellis spoke as she raised her head to face Gyrfalcon, "…is that yes, it is true that Nadie is my support. However, that is what makes our relationship: just as she is my support, I am hers. And I know, regardless of whether or not she reciprocates my feelings, is that no matter what, she will come for me."

Gyrfalcon clapped at this.

"Bravo, bravo! I do enjoy it when a girl shows bravery! However, I cannot help but feel disappointed by your answer. Thus-"

Suddenly, one of the guard's radios came on.

"This is 14, requesting back-up! I repeat! It's the witAAAAUGH!"

"14, repeat! What is going on?!" responded the guard into the radio.

"Hmm… it seems that we could not rely on the sisters after all. Very well. Have the others gather up our other two guests and…"

"You're not going anywhere with them."

"Oh?" spoke Gyrfalcon as he was grabbing some things from the desk.

"I won't let you." Spoke Ellis firmly.

"I see; very well, then, I guess I'll have to-"

Suddenly, the door burst open. A boomerang came whirling in, knocking a guard in the face. Nadie followed suit, smashing the nearest guard's face in with her fist. She drew her gun on Gyrfalcon.

"If you have any last words, say'em!"

Ellis turned to face Gyrfalcon.

"See?" she said with just a trace of smugness.

Gyrfalcon gulped, and then straightened himself out.

"Ah, well, er… very well, then. It seems that my request has been denied by at least one party. Very well We'll meet again."

He ran towards the window to jump out of it.

"I don't think so!" shouted Nadie, but as she tried to fire at him, his hornbill came flying up and got in her face, causing her to miss.

"Damn bird, get off of me!" Nadie spoke as she tried to get the raging bird off of her.

The two remaining guards tried to fire on Nadie, but Ellis caused their weapons to melt at the muzzle. The guards, not wanting to mess with one who controls the elements, simpy jumped out of the window after their leader and went tearing off into the jungle.

Ellis ran towards Nadie and embraced her.

"Ellis, I'm glad you're okay. Did they do anything to you?"

"No."

"Then let's get out of here. Come along, Lirio!"

"Un!"

The girls left the room, not knowing exactly, though, how they were going to get out of the building.

* * *

"You know, this is all your fault." Said Kennedy to Dido as they both sat crammed underneath a desk in a small office in Guatemala.

Outside, the sounds of gunfire were occasionally heard, as well as other, nastier sounds, like the sound of a thin piece of metal slicing through some unfortunate bloke's arm, or the sound of something gelatinous munching on the bones of yet another poor bastard.

They both tensed up when they heard the sound of running boots outside the office door, but relaxed slightly as they heard them disappear down the corridor.

Once the sounds were over, though, the pair got up and slowly made their way to the window to peep outside. They saw blood and carnage everywhere, as well as the dirt trail of several vehicles in the distance.

"Do you think we can make it outside now?" spoke Dido to Kennedy.

"Well, we could try. It's not like we didn't come close to dying several other times today."

They made their way through the halls of the now-empty building, and made their way outside. About a half hour had passed since the beginning of the resurrection, and the two were not entirely sure what to expect. They finally came outside and came upon the ghastly sight of the flesh-monster form earlier chewing away on the arm of one of the guards.

"Yeesh." Said Dido to nobody in particular.

The sun had begun to go down, casting an eerie glow over the jungle. At a clearing by the garage, they found the person they were looking for.

He stood staring off into the distance, covered by blood. The steel bracelet was now around his left wrist. Nearby laid the bodies of three guards, cut neatly in several pieces.

Not knowing what else to say, Dido spoke out to it.

"Greetings!"

The figure, without turning, simply spoke in a light, male voice.

"Oh. And you would be?"

"Well… to put it in simple terms, I guess I'm your savior. I and my sister here brought you back to life."

"Oh… the reason being?"

"Well, erm, quite simple!..."

"…yes?"

"Well, um, ahem: we have a deal to make with you."

"And that would be?"

"Er, you see, we want to make an exchange: we get something, you get something."

"…go on."

"Well, yes, there is somebody we want dead. And, judging by if you still have your memories, you may want her dead as well…"

Dido procured a picture of Nadie and held it up to the air.

"And in exchange?" spoke the young male, turning his head slightly to look over his shoulder.

"In exchange, you can have the person of your deepest longing." Dido pulled another picture out, this time of Ellis.

"Ah… well, then…" the figure turned around completely.

"I believe… that we have a deal…" it said, smiling.

That day, a boy was brought back to life. This boy was L.A.

Author's Note: Da-da-duuun! What a shocking twist! What further developments shall come from this revelation? How did the girls escape from the compound? The answers to these and other questions shall be answered next time!

As an additional note: these last few chapters were pretty heavy, but I promise that the humor will come back in force starting next chapter. Till next time, keep reading, and thanks for doing so!


	8. The Incandescent Flame of Love

Our heroines crept slowly and carefully through the halls of the building, wary of the sounds of gunfire and panic in the distance.

They saw few people inside the building, and those few were busy leaving it.

"Whatever it is, it ain't good…" mentioned Nadie.

"Are they under attack?" questioned Ellis.

"I'm not sure, but I don't want to hang around to find out, as much as I want to cream that Captain guy."

They crept about carefully, carefully looking around corners before moving on. After meeting no resistance in the building, they cautiously went through the door. In the distance by the garage area, there was a trail of smoke and shouts. To the right, they saw three jeeps driving off in the distance.

"Damn! They got away!"

Nadie's anger only grew when she realized that there were no other vehicles to take.

"Looks like we'll have to make it through the jungle. Stay close."

"Yes, sir."

Nadie had always loved that little quirk of Ellis. In fact, there were a lot of things about Ellis that Nadie loved.

_Wait, wait, stop. Now's not the time to be thinking about stuff like that._

The girls walked about in the jungle for about forty-five minutes before they finally encountered a road. After four cars passed in an eleven minute timespan, Nadie judged that they could probably hitchhike there.

Nadie saw a car coming, and assumed her standard hitchhiking pose.

"Yoo-hooo~" she called out, only to be promptly ignored.

"Hey, jerk, get back here!"

_Dammit, it works sometimes, but never when I need it!_

Lirio tugged at Nadie's poncho.

"Hm? Yeah, Lirio?"

Lirio did a cute imitation of Nadie's hitchhiking pose. Nadie, not knowing what else to do, just laughed.

"It's great, Lirio! Just wait a little longer before you actually try it, alright?" She bent down to put her hands on Lirio's shoulders.

Another car, in the meantime was approaching, and Ellis decided to have a shot at it. She did her own pose, and the oncoming truck slowed and came to a stop just ahead of them.

Nadie turned around and, of course, was dumbfounded.

_Of course, it works when she does it…_

The man who pulled over was a farmer from a nearby village and was driving into town. After some persuasion (mostly utilizing the guilt-trip that leaving a young child out in the cold would be a really mean-spirited thing to do), they were able to get a ride out of him.

Not having enough room in the truck itself for all three girls they opted instead to all sit in the back. After everything that had just transpired with them, Nadie did not want to take any chances that something may happen to the girls if they just rode in the back.

The unpaved road was bumpy, and at several points the girls had to hold close to each other in order not to be thrown off the truck. After travelling about ten miles, several small houses could be seen by the road, and after another five minutes, the girls found themselves in a small town. It did not have much to offer visitors; then again, the people of the town never expected any.

The man stopped outside of a relatively large church, and after speaking to a man out front (presumably the church pastor), beckoned the girls to come closer.

"Make yourselves at home, young girls. Though I apologize that my church may not have much to offer in the area of comfort, though there are at least some beds to sleep on." The pastor said as he guided the girls through the church.

"Thanks a lot, Padre. I'm sure we'll be able to rest easy here." responded Nadie.

"Well, then, I am glad that the little I can do is still enough to be able to help. But I am rather curious about one thing: what are three young girls such as yourselves doing in this neck of the woods, anyway? You certainly don't seem to be from around these parts."

"Uh…" Nadie did not prepare a believable explanation to tell people why exactly they would be in the middle of the jungle hitchhiking.

"Well, er, uh, you see…"

"Yes…?"

_Crap, what am I going to do?_

"We were with some friends, and they forgot us when they left. We were camping." Said Ellis.

"Huh?"

"Oh, my, that is terrible! How could your companions do that to you? Some 'friends' they turned out to be!"

"Uh, yeah, that's exactly what happened! "

"Well, now I'm doubly glad that I was able to help you poor girls out. Here, your room." The Pastor opened the door and revealed a small room with a bed, a small desk, a chair, a small desk lamp on top of that desk, and not much else.

"The accommodations are rather sparse, but I hope that you are comfortable."

"Thanks, Padre. We'll be fine."

"Well, then, I'll leave you girls to rest. If you need anything, just come and find me. I'll be here all day."

The Pastor left the room and closed the door behind him.

Lirio immediately clambered onto the bed, exhausted form the past days experience.

"Tired…" was all she said.

She was soon joined by Ellis, who climbed on next to her, both girls facing down into the bed.

Nadie chose to sit in the chair, and leaned back.

"Thanks."

"Hm?"

"For the cover story. I was at a lost as to what to say."

"Oh. You're welcome."

Nadie looked over both Ellis and Lirio.

_Why does all of this stupid shit have to happen to us? Why can't the universe just leave us alone? And we dragged poor Lirio into all of this. Poor girl's going to have PTSD. _

Nadie let out a sigh and allowed herself to fall into a state of half-awareness as the two other girls on the bed slumbered on.

* * *

Meanwhile, Dido, Kennedy, and L.A. did not have to wait long until they saw several helicopters appear overhead. They were being manned by the demons that had survived the massacre at the compound.

Now that they were in relative safety and being transported back to the compound, Dido regained her composure and quickly was back to her old self. In other words, she was being incredibly bombastic, petty, and angry.

"I cannot believe the nerve of that damned bird-guy! Who the hell does he think he is, invading _my_ base, slaughtering _my_ men, messing up _my_ plans, and kidnapping _my_ targets? Oooh, he shall pay! He will rue the day that he dare trifle with the plans of _DIDO!"_

"Well, that's nice, but do you really have a plan? I mean, we have no idea where this guy even is right now. For all we know, he could be off the continent by this point."

Dido first looked at Kennedy, then looked at the blood-soaked L.A., who was currently tied up to his chair, a look of calm on his face.

"No need to fear for lack of planning, my dear sister! All we need to do is use our mirror to find him, and then we'll send our new friend over here to go and kick his ass!"

"I believe that the terms of our deal were that I would get to kill the person that I want to kill, in exchange for Ellis. Are you telling me that there is more to it?"

Dido was slightly startled when L.A. spoke, as he had said nothing the entire time that they were on the helicopter.

"Because if that is the case, I will just kill you now, right here. Do you think that I am not strong enough to break these bonds? I am merely going along with the ride at the moment."

"Ah! Er, well, um… care to discuss it over tea later?"

"…gladly."

Kennedy, not sure what to say in this context, just chose to ignore it completely, lay her bed back, and try to get some sleep.

* * *

Later on, Nadie awoke. It was sometime in the night. She looked around and still saw that Ellis and Lirio were asleep on the bed. She let her head slump back again and stared at the ceiling.

_Ellis… I shouldn't have let you get away from me. Because of that, you had to go through this rotten experience… _

Nadie began to feel the same funny feeling she felt so many times before, and this time she didn't put up much of a fight to suppress it.

_Ellis… I don't know how to feel about you anymore. I cherish your presence in my life, but I feel that you're more than a friend… I want to protect you. I want to take you away from all of these problems and just stay by your side._

Nadie noticed movement from the bed and saw Ellis sit up. Ellis let out a yawn.

"Good evening, Nadie."

"Oh, uh, good evening, Ellis. Did you get some rest?"

"For the most part." She said as she curled her legs up and wrapped her arms around them.

They sat in silence for a moment.

"Nadie…"

"Yeah?"

"Thank you. For always being there. Always coming to get me."

"No prob, Ellis. I'll always be there to get you. Alwa-" Nadie stopped when she saw tears begin to form on Ellis' face.

"Ellis, what's wrong?"

"I'm always such a burden to you, Nadie."

"N-no, you're not! You're not a burden at all, El-"

"Yes, I am! Even after all this time of being left alone, there are still people chasing after me. It's because of that that your life is so chaotic. I wish… I wish that it wouldn't have to be thi-"

Ellis stopped when she felt arms wrap around her.

"Ellis… listen. I don't care how many times I have to go rescue you. I don't care how often bad men try to take you away. I don't care how often we may get chased around. All I care about is you and your happiness, Ellis."

"Nadie…"

By this point, both girls had some tears going down their faces.

"Nadie… why is it that you care. Why do you stay with me?"

Both girls were now looking at each other in the face.

"It's… well… I…"

_Why is it that I stay with her? She is my friend, of course. And someone needs to look out for her. But…_

_No. No. It can't be that. That's incredibly sappy. And… and anyway, I like guys… don't I?_

_It's… it is… that is the reason… the reason I…_

"Well… Ellis… I've been meaning to say this for a while, so please listen…"

Ellis sat on the bed, the same passive look on her face, but with eyes slightly red from crying.

"Yes, Nadie?"

Nadie took a sigh.

_Well, here goes nothing…_

"Ellis... truth be told, I don't know what words to use to put my reason for being with you in. But… I have to say something. So here it is: Ellis, you are my friend. A really, really, really good friend. You are the best friend I've ever had. But it's more than that, Ellis. I…"

"…Nadie. Are you…"

"Yes, Ellis. I am trying to say that I-"

"…Nadie, please say it."

"…yes, of course. Ellis, I care very, very deeply about you. In more ways than one. So I just want to say that I lo-"

"Eh?" came the small voice of a recently-awakened Lirio.

"Oh… how long have you been awake, Lirio?"

"…eh-heh!"

_Well, there goes the moment._

"It's okay, Nadie. I think I know what you were trying to say." Said Ellis with a smile.

_A smile… I love her smile._

Lirio's stomach let out a sound that probably could have been heard through the door.

"Oh, that's right… we haven't eaten anything in a while. Want to see what food that the Padre has?"

"Un!"

"Alright, let's go then!"

The girls got up and made their way to try and find the Pastor. Along the way, Ellis grabbed a hold of Nadie's arm.

"Nadie. Thanks."

"Uh… no problem, Ellis. No problem."

To herself, Ellis thought

_The Incandescent Flame of Love..._

Nadie put a hand around Ellis' on her arm, and the two girls, now slightly more reassured in their reasons for their relationship, made their way down the dim halls of the church, Lirio in tow, the Incandescent Flame of Love burning slightly brighter within their souls than before.


	9. A small interlude

Meanwhile, back at the compound…

Two of the survivors of the incident several chapters earlier were busy fixing up the place, trying to get the blood out of the carpet, etc.

"Well, things have certainly become complicated…"

"Yeah, so?"

"Well… first, you had those goons that showed out of the blue and absolutely kicked our asses, and then we now know that there are several groups running around that are gunning towards roughly the same conclusions we're trying to reach, but beyond that, we have no idea what they're up to."

"Yeah, things sure are getting a little bit weird… but hey, there was some progress in the relationship."

"Relationship…?"

"Yeah, you know, the one between those two girls we're trying to deep-six. It's actually rather charming and cute. Nadie almost said 'I love you' earlier! Ain't that just adorable!"

"…you've been reading too many romance stories."

"Wh-wh-what?!"

"Yeah, yeah, fact of the matter is, no matter how cute they are, we're still trying to kill them."

"…true. But wouldn't be nice if that wasn't the case?"

"You know what?"

"What?"

"Shut up and get back to work."

"Awww…."

_And I thought I could have made him join the NadiexEllis club also! What a disappointment… oh, well, I guess I'll try some of the other guys…._

Incredibly short segment, I know. But all it is is basically a summation of what's up to this point. I will try to get at least one or two chapters in tomorrow, and hopefully be finished by the end of the month.

Thank you to those who have read this far, and I hope you'll continue reading.


	10. The Response (Part 1)

Meanwhile, while all of this lovey-dovey stuff was going on, the Amigo Tacos form earlier, the one form which the undercover agent called Jodie, was suddenly assaulted.

Right around seven in the evening, a large black van (for some reasons, the vans are always either black or white for these kind of things), the driver's side windows opened up, and the poor taco restaurant was pelted with fire from several automatic rifles.

Fortunately the agent, who knew what was going to happen the moment she saw the van pull up, ordered everyone to get down. After about a minute of gunfire, the van pulled away, screaming into the distance.

The people in the restaurant were largely unharmed, with only a few minor cuts and bruises and a sprained ankle here and there. The agent calmly ordered everyone to go home or seek medical attention, and then she went to the back to consult with the waitress (who was also her partner).

"What the flying hell just happened?" asked the waitress.

"I was afraid something like this might happen. It's already happened at three other Amigo Tacos locations, two here in Mexico, one in Honduras."

"Are they that group we've been tracking?"

"I don't know… but I have a sure guess that it is. We have to call the Boss immediately."

"Roger."

The waitress went to pick up the phone and call Jodie.

* * *

Meanwhile, Jodie was just getting ready to go take a shower when the phone rung.

"Yes, this is Jodie."

"It's happened. We've been assaulted."

"Is anyone injured?"

"Nothing serious. Only some cuts and bruises."

"And a sprained ankle." chimed in the other agent from the background.

"Damn it! This makes four times now. I think that it's safe to say, ladies, that they're on to us now. They know we've been keeping tabs on them. And now that they've got Ellis and Nadie…"

"Our associates are doing their best to try and locate them. We've received reports of something happening in Guatemala."

"Guatemala?"

"Yes. From our research, that was one of their main bases of operation."

"Now, by 'something happening', what do you mean?"

"We have scant data right now, but our partners in Surveillance noticed what they called a 'weird signal' that radiated from somewhere in western Guatemala about 30 miles east of the border with Mexico."

"'weird signal'?"

"Yes. They didn't know what to make of it. There was this sudden concentration of electromagnetism. There's agents right now being sent to the area to investigate."

"Alright. Report back to me when you've found something. Otherwise, just try and keep up the appearance of a normal taco restaurant. No more calling people in, okay?"

"Yes, ma'am."

"Alright. Take care."

Jodie put down the phone and finished preparations for the shower.

"Electromagnetism… this isn't a good sign…"

Jodie got into the shower and for a while just allowed the water to pour over her.

"What in the world is going on… Ellis… Nadie… please, be alright…"

* * *

Several hours later, Jodie had called an emergency meeting to be held amongst all higher-ups in Amigo Tacos via video conference to plan a course of action.

"Alright, everybody, this is the situation: a paramilitary group led by a man calling himself Captain Gyrfalcon has, over the past year, been operating throughout Latin America. Recently, they have made a move and kidnapped three girls, Ellis Schneider, Lirio and Nadie. They have also assaulted four of our locations, thus it seems to me that they're on to us tracking their moves. Our objectives: locate the three girls, rescue them, and locate their centers of operation throughout Latin America. Further details shall be issued later, but for the time being, I would like to create a taskforce to locate the three captives. The two I want to be leading this operation are Agents 42 and 64."

Two girls popped up on the screen, one with medium-length dark-grey wavy hair, the other with short violet hair. They were two of the girls, if one remembers correctly, who were most often with Jodie back in the days when they were pursuing Ellis and Nadie across the Americas.

"I give the two of you freedom to pick those agents and personnel you deem most effective to achieve your goals."

"We shall do as you wish. Hopefully, we won't be too late." Said the dark-haired one, 42.

"Good. Any questions?"

The almost uniform "No, Ma'am" was all Jodie needed.

"Alright. Conference closed. Next meeting in 900 hours. Let's do this."

"Over and out."


	11. Talking with one's self

The girls were successful in finding the Pastor, and after a odest dinner of tortilla, fruit, and dried fish and fruit, returned to the room that had been provided for them. The girls resumed their spots upon the furniture, but with Ellis and Lirio this time lying on their backs instead of their stomachs.

Ellis was busy telling Lirio about some of the misadventures that she and Nadie have had together.

Meanwhile, as Nadie watched on, she allowed herself to slip into her own thoughts.

_I can't believe it... I actually was about to say "I love you" to Ellis..._

_Well, isn't that the truth?_

_Yes! Yes, but... well..._

_Well? You just said that it was th truth, didn't you? _

_Yes, but... you see... I love her, yes, that is true... she is the most important person in my life... but do I love her in "that" way?_

_Well, all clues seem to point in that direction, yes._

_B-but no! I mean me... and Ellis... being lovers?_

_Yes._

_Kissing each other? Holding each other in our arms?_

_Yes._

_Being... intimate... with each other?_

_Indubitively._

_Even doing... this and that..._

_Correct. _

_No!_

_No?_

_Yes! I mean, no! I mean, yes, I mean no!_

_You sound confused._

_B-b-b-but! You gotta be kidding! I'd be completely loca if I tried... well..._

_Are you worried about her innocence?_

_Uh... you know... maybe... I think..._

_You know, she reads romance novels all of the time. _

_Yeah, so?_

_She wouldn't exactly be ignorant of those kind of things._

_Ah! Yes, but..._

_Are you afraid she might be weirded out if you ask her if she loved you in "that" way?_

_Well, yes... maybe a little._

_Nadie... think back to that time where your car broke down and you spent the day with Ricardo and Lirio. Didn't Ellis' behavior seem a little off to you?_

_Yeah... she seemed angry..._

_Don't you think that was in any way jealousy?_

_Jealousy?_

_Yes... she loathed the idea of you being with someone else. Childish, yes. But she didn't know of any other way to express her emotions._

"Nadie?"

"Eh?"

Nadie snapped out of her reverie when she heard her name called by Ellis.

"Yeah?"

"You seem angry."

"Angry? Uh... no, I'm not angry. I'm just trying to figure out what to do next. We still got to get Lirio back to Ricardo, afterall."

"Oh. Right."

Lirio slightly saddened at Ricardo's mention.

"Don't worry, Lirio. I'm sure Ricardo is looking for us. We're bound to run into him eventually." said Ellis to Lirio to comfort her.

_That's what I_ _love about you, Ellis... you're just love wrapped in human skin._

Nadie got up from the chair and tok position next to Ellis on the bed.

"Nadie?"

"It looked like you guys were having fun lying here on the bed, so I decided to join."

Nadie tugged both Ellis and Lirio close to her.

_Now's not the time or place to talk to her about it... when this is all over, maybe then..._

"Hey, weren't you telling Lrio about us?"

"Mm-hmm."

"Okay. Now how about I tell you about the time where Elis and I thought we saw a ghost?"

And so Nadie contributed also to the evening's converstion, and she and Ellis told Lirio about there misadentures, some of which shall be elaborated upon another time. They ended up all on top of each other, Lirio on Ellis, and Ellis on Nadie, and all slept peacefully.

* * *

Note: Short chapter, yes. The next one may be short as well, but I think I'm getting close to an ending. I thank all of you who have read this far, and humbly ask that you continue to do so. Also, please leave me some coments; it's how I know you're reading it, and I want your input.

Until next time, see ya!


	12. They went that-a-way!

Meanwhile, while all of this was going on, Ricardo was driving all over the place searching for clues on where the girls may have been taken to.

Every opportunity he got, he asked people if they saw several large trucks going in a specific direction. More often than not, he got false leads, and had to spend hours backtracking.

Eventually, he found himself in Guatemala. However, beyond that, he was having a harder time getting information from people. So in the end, he resolved to just go up every track leading into the jungle he could, in the hopes of eventually finding the right place.

After spending two days doing this, he realized that he was getting absolutely nowhere with it.

However, his drive to find the three girls (especially Lirio) pushed him onwards to find them. Every hour that passed by, the more worried he got.

Eventually, his vehicle could not keep up with his resolve, and it unfortunately broke down. Not just that, it broke down, and then it began to rain on him.

Not knowing what else to do, Ricardo got out and began walking in the direction of the town he just passed, hoping that they at least had someone who knew cars well enough to help him get his operating again.

After reaching his destination, he began grilling everyone for not just information relating to his current situation, but about the trucks as well. To his surprise and relief, he finally got a clear answer.

"Oh? I think I saw something like that. Down the road about 8 miles back there's some road that leads into the jungle. Don't know what for, though. Smoke came from that direction yesterday, but yet again, don't know."

After thanking him for the info, Ricardo sat down in the town's only small diner to eat something, an action he had completely forgotten to do the past two days.

Sitting at his table, he ruminated upon what he was going to do, his heart aching every time he thought of the girls.

Just then, a raggedy-looking fellow in a raggedy-looking grey suit with long, raggedy oily hair stepped in. Without so much of a look he took a seat right down next to Ricardo, and flashed him a crooked smile.

"You look like you got problems, señor. Mind if we talk about them?"

After Ricardo just sent him a heavy look, he still kept smiling and continued.

"You look like you're… missing something? Did you lose something? Something important? Phone, car keys, wallet, your daughter, your hom-"

"How did you know?" Ricardo asked without looking.

"Hm? Call it intuition. I just happen to know things a lot of the time. As for why, eh, I don't know. I just do. Anyway, so we've established you're missing your daughter… anyone else?"

"Why the hell should I tell you?"

"Eh, I don't know. When you think about it, it's really suspicious, isn't it? How I know this information."

The stranger placed his hands on the counter and got up.

"Well, I guess now is as a good a time as any to get going. Thanks for the conversation!"

He left the diner, and Ricardo looked down to where the stranger was. He saw two scraps of paper. Picking them up, one contained an address and a number. The other one had the name of a pastor on it, along with a small note:

The things you're looking for may or may not be here. Good luck.

-S. Becoyo

"Becoyo?"

Ricardo pondered the name for a moment, and then realizing he probably got the best lead he's had so far, asked the owner of the diner for a phone.

"Yes, this is the Pastor… yes, three girls did show up here just yesterday… how did you know? Oh, you've been looking for them? Well… sorry to say this, but they left about three hours ago. Said they were going to try and find a way back to Mexico or something. Sir…?"

Ricardo left the phone hanging as he ran out the door.

"Señor! Your pay!"

However, Ricardo was long gone by the time the owner realized that he had left without paying.

* * *

Another short chapter. Oh, well, just setting things up, after all.


End file.
